


Born to Die

by Geminigypsy521



Category: Queen of the South
Genre: Blood and Gore, Cartel, Drug Use, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Ezra Miller - Freeform, F/M, Friendship/Love, From Dusk Till Dawn - Freeform, Kidnapping, Killing, La Reina De Sur, Love/Hate, Oral Sex, Plus size main character, Queen of the South - Freeform, Quentin Tarantino References, Rough Sex, lana del rey - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-11-13 04:12:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 9
Words: 34,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11176764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geminigypsy521/pseuds/Geminigypsy521
Summary: There we're a lot of things she could complain about; but at twenty-fucking- four she was a millionaire. So what if it was all blood money? Drug money. She could take of all of her guilt and swallow it; and dress it in Chanel.James/OC Teresa/OCfriendship





	1. Bel Air

**Author's Note:**

> At the ripe age of twenty four, she drives a range rover and hasn't paid her taxes in years. So she helps run a multimillion dollar cartel? You'e got to do what you've got to do.

**Because I'm 100% obsessed with USA's Queen of the South series and there's no stories about it and it's killing my vibe. Ps, James is my baby daddy and I love him.**

There’s a lot of things she could complain about, could wail and scream about. The fact that she’d seen and spilled more blood then she could account for, that was one. Even worse, she managed not to feel bad for said blood, or at least that’s what she told herself. Having to pick up her life and move it across the country, to fucking Texas of all places, that was another. Being forced to endure time with a family that she had never met before the untimely death (murder) of the father she’d never known, well that had to be the worst.

Yes, there were a lot of things Katrina Portokalos complain about, but at the ripe age of twenty four years old, she was a millionaire. And that’s why, in her opinion, complaining about the things she had to endure to get to this point was completely fucking useless.

The big house she owned, her range rover, her closet. She couldn’t complain about those, could she? Even if they were paid for in full by drug money.

She could take all that guilt, and dress it up in Chanel.

She’d gotten good at it.

Kat’s sat in her bed, propped against the headboard as old reruns of Jersey Shore light up the otherwise dark room. There’s a cherried blunt between her fingers and she brings it up to her lips and puffs on it every once and a while, careful to avoid disturbing the drying facemask she has on her face.

When her phone rings, chirping from its place on the bed beside her, her stomach does a little flip flop.

Camila the caller ID boldly reads and she swipes her thumb across the screen and lifts it to her ear.

“Is everything okay?” Kat questions. Because it’s four o’clock in the morning. Any normal person would be asleep; it’s not really the time to be making nonchalant, pleasantry phone calls.

Plus, when was anything really nonchalant with Camila?

“Yes, don’t worry” Camila reassures from over the phone, Kat feels her shoulders shrug, but only a little. “I was just calling to tell you Epiphano’s been in an accident”

“What kind of accident? Is he okay?” Kat inquires at Camila’s bucolic tone. You’d think she’d be a little more worried about her husband being in an accident. Kat knew the two were having…issues. But still.

“He’s fine, calmarse, Kat. You really need to stop smoking so much of that mota before bed, it makes you paranoid” She’d gotten used to that mothering edge Camila pulled on her frequently “He’s fine, but he’s got some problems. He’s looking for a girl”

“What girl? What’d she do to him?”

“A girl who just happened to stumble into our mule route” Kat’s eyebrows raise as she takes a quick puff of the blunt “I’m not sure what she did to him yet, I’m going to question her soon and find out”

“Okay, do you want me to come to the warehouse?” She’s already sitting up.

“No, that’s not necessary. I just wanted to make sure you heard it from me first, and that you know I would like to keep this…an internal business for the time being”

Internal business? Kat lets that roll around in her head for a moment.

Ah, so we’re going to be keeping this from Don Ephifanio, she thinks to herself.

So if, and when, she got a call asking if she knew where the girl was she was to keep her mouth shut.

“I understand” She assures.

“Good, I knew you would. Not get some sleep, hija. I’ll see you in the morning” And with that the line goes dead and Kats left with her phone in her hand, the blunt in her mouth and

 _“Rahn Staph”_ echoing from the TV.

She just _knows_ the coming day is going to be a bitch.

The next day is long, for all parties included.

Teresa notices her the moment she walks into the room; the sound of heels clicking against the concrete floor catches her attention and sends her gaze in the direction of the door the full-figured girl had just come through.

Not Camilla, Teresa thinks to herself as she sees the girl. The girl who looks painstakingly familiar with her smoky eyes and her long highlighted hair that falls past her well ample bosom.

She’s obviously not a mule. Not a worker.

Not one of these girls that surrounded Teresa on cots, who had makeshift desks made out of old plastic crates and who wore clothes that probably came from ‘Walmart’ could afford the leathery black bag the girl who had just walked in had hanging at the crease of her elbow.

Givenchy, Teresa notes with a pang of incredible longing for the past. She remembered when Guero had boughten her nearly identical one, remembers the feeling of utter disbelief.

"You could've bought me a pinche car, Guero, with how much this costs!" She had scolded him, but held the raw leather satchel, worth over twenty thousand pesos, close in awe.

The girls hair bounces in a way that indicates a recent blow out and even from Teresa's spot on the hard ground she can see nails so manicured, Teresa can almost smell the acrylic of the salon.

But, it's not only the material things that give away the obscure girls status; because if anyone of these mules could make enough money they'd be all dolled up too.

But they couldn't stand with the caviler importance that this girl did. There was no fear, no hesitance as she talked to the men, who clambered around the warehouse with her arms folded over her chest, her green eyes shining. No, piercing. Everything about her demanding attention.

And they seemed to give it to her, respectfully, if not in a friendly- almost playful way. Comrades.

And that's when Teresa, who had been assessing the girl since she came in realized that she had to be some one big. Someone in charge of something.

When that pair of cat like green eyes turns and meets Teresa's own chestnut orbs Teresa' expects them to be filled with...well she doesn't know, but she doesn't expect them to be so vibrantly questioning. And not in a cold way, but in a blatant 'I'm looking at you, and you know I'm looking at you, and I know you know I don't care if you can see me questioning your entire existence' kind of look.

The kind of look Teresa had seen children give art exhibits at museums.

"Hey" Teresa's attention is snapped away from the green eyes and to the woman in front of her. "Here" said woman hands her a cloth full of ice, made to be an ice pack.

"Gracias" Teresa thanks as she puts it up to the throbbing cut on her lip, the one she’d earned by being pistol whipped through the chain-link cage by a burly man. All she’d fucking asked was to see Camila. Cabron.

"It's okay, I know you're scared. My names Aveline"

"Teresa" She replies after a moment, hesitant because this kind of kindness- the kind this girl was showing her, usually had an ulterior motive behind it.

"Are you a pro or mule?"

Teresa had heard that word, pro, thrown around a few times since she had been bought in. She still didn’t exactly know what it meant. But she had an idea. And she most definitely was NOT a ‘pro’.

"Neither"

"Do you even know where you are" the soft tone of Aveline's voice makes her annoyed for some reason. It’s almost patronizing.  

"Dallas"

Aveline shifts, seeming to get more serious.

"My advice to you, the guy who just gave you that: that asshole, he's the nicest guy in here"

That's comforting.

"And who's that girl?" Teresa implores, turning to look again at the girl who stands across the room with a group of the Narcos.

"That's Kat, she's a head, a kind of 'Donna' in training. Her padre was a Calavera" Ah, Teresa thinks. She knew it. The Calavera's we're a known branch of the Colombian cartel "She's cool though, she brings us in stuff all the time. She'll even do your makeup if you ask her"

"It's not so bad here, once you get used to it. You stick close to me and I'll help you out. I help a lot of girls. If you follow me you'll see; and before you know it you'll be in my position"

Teresa listens to Aveline, listens to her tell her the ways of navigating the world of being a mule and her stomach churns as she attempts to keep a composed face, to not let the dread she's feeling show.

She has absolutely no desire to be like this girl.

To have to do “some things” for better food or for better money. And being quiet like a mouse had never been her strong suit.

She’d been in this position before; dirt poor with nothing but the clothes on her back. So why was it such a hard pill to swallow now? Maybe because she knew what it was like to live, really live, and not just eat crumbs to survive.

She’d feasted on filet-mingon, and couldn’t really imagine being satisfied with frijoles ever again.

Unbeknownst to Teresa, across the room those green eyes had never really left her and were still assessing her.

Kat was still trying to figure out what in the world this girl could have on Epifanio that was causing him to be in such a panic.

Learning how to pick up on peoples body language, on the tone of voices kind of came with the job and when she got the phone call from Epifanio earlier this morning she knew some weird shit was up.

_“Don Epi, I’m happy to hear that you’re doing okay” The cheerful, pleasant little girl act?  Yeah, Kat had that down._

_“Thank you, Katrina. I’m feeling very fortunate” And their short conversation had gone pleasantly, like most of the conversations she had with him did. She’d always been on good terms with the man; even thought he was a good guy. Well as good of a guy as a man in this business could be._

_But they both knew where her loyalties lay, which is why her phone had been on speaker the entire time as she sat across from Camila in her office. The dark eyed elder woman listening to it all._

_“You remember her, from the Christmas party back a couple years ago? Guero’s girl?”_

_Not really, she’d been completely wasted at said party. But she said she did anyway._

_“What’s so important about her though? I mean I get that she stole from you guys, but this sounds really serious” Kat pushes, at the silent request of Camila._

_“Nothing important about her at all. We just need to make sure that people like this, and their families are made an example. It’s when people start to sense weakness that things start to get messy. We need everyone to know they can’t steal from the Vargas cartel and get away with it”_

_Kat had shared a look with Camila from across the desk. That’s a load of bullshit. People already knew not to fuck with the Vargas cartel; there were a sting of bodies over the last decades to prove it._

_“Okay, I’ll keep an eye out for her. If I come across anything I’ll make sure to have Camila call you”_

_“No, mija, you call. I quite enjoy our little talks” Epifanio cajoles and Kat rolls her eyes, Camila’s grin at her is a bit unnerving “Give my love to your grandfather. Tell him he still owes me money from that poker game, eh”_

_Epifanio really is a charming man. Almost as charming as his wife._

_“I’ll make sure to do that”_

_And when the phone line goes dead, both women know now, for sure, that something isn’t adding up._

_“You see what I was talking about? She means something to him”_

_“Yeah but what? Guero was pretty high in the ranks. Do you think she’s dangerous? To you as well as him I mean?” Kat points out. Because even if Epifanio and Camila are going through this martial spat, they’re still connected, when it comes to financial and political aspects in the very least. You still hurt one of them, you hurt both of them._

_“I don’t know yet, but I intend on finding out”_

“Hey! Hey! There’s something wrong with her” Kat had only taken her eyes off of Teresa for two seconds when the girl screaming pierces the air of the warehouse.

Wrong with who? Hadn’t Teresa just been taking to Aveline…

“Fuck! Fuck go get her!” She yells at the men as it dawns on her what exactly is happening. She clambers behind them in her heels, cursing James in her mind.

That _idiot_ had found the most useless fucking chemist in the world, and their girls kept dying because of it.

“Aw, she’s dead” Juan, “The Charger”, lets out an irritated groan as he bends down to the obviously dead Aveline and Kat hisses a god damn it.

Not again. Not on a day as important as this one.

“They burst again, fuck”

“Get her to the table!” Kat barks, already taking out her phone to 1. Inform Camila that they had a problem

and 2. To tell James that his chemist had fucked up again and he needed to get down here. Now.

“Get her up” “Come on, come on, come on”

“Quick! Before they dissolve!”

Kat looks down at Teresa, just for a second, before following behind Juan, Chinito and the other men.

She knew what was coming, what had to be done, and for the moment she couldn’t think of Aveline as Aveline. As a human being, as the nice girl who didn’t deserve to be a corpse.

No. For the moment Aveline was nothing more than a mule, one that was full of over fifty grand worth of coke. So when Juan cuts into her middle, the crimson that pools out of the girl doesn’t make Kat gag. Or even wince.

If anything, she’s more concerned about the dissolving product which would dissolve their relationship with Han if they couldn’t make the delivery.

“Okay, baby. Give me something” Juan begins to pull gore covered pellets of coke from Avelins stomach; ones that weren’t completely ruined and Kat lets out a relieved breath.

“Thank fuck. How many are salvageable?”

She doesn’t notice the terror stricken Teresa who watches it all from behind the chain wall, she does how ever notice the movement out of the corner of her eye when the curly haired girl makes a run for it.

“Hey! She’s running!” Kat hollers as she watches Teresa spring across the floor, and under one of the garage doors. “Shit. Don’t let her get away, Tonto!”

And she wants to go make sure that they get Teresa, that the girl can’t escape because she still has no idea what information she had, but, instead Kat stands back at the table with Juan, counting the pellets as he continues to pull them from the mules insides. Grabbing the bloody drug filled capsules and going to run them under the faucet, cleaning them of blood and stomach acid in an attempt to save them.

One crisis at a time, she reminds her self.

Plus? How was she going to even run after Teresa with the shoes she has on? Breaking her ankle was not on the agenda for the day.

“They better catch that girl or there’s going to be hell to pay”

Standing with Juan over the corpse, Kat’s quietly seething. Calculating, as she picks at her nails.

What are they going to do? How are they going to get this shipment out?

Even they don’t own TSA, and muleing was the only way to get it past security.

Teresa, of course, had been caught and was now securely locked up. Which was at least one thing Kat didn’t have to worry about.

She’s brought out of her internal fretting by the sound of the chain door opening and she looks up to see a familiar tall man entering the room.

Good. Someone she can be pissed at, can place the blame on because where the fuck had he even found this “chemist”?

She shoots him a hard cold glare before looking away, her arms folded over her chest.

“Twenty two” Juan states to him. The number of capsules they’d been able to save.

Rolling the sleeves of his leather jacket up to his elbow, James reaches a hand into Avelines still cut open body. She’s gone room temperature and he scrunches his face fighting disgust. He digs around in there for only a moment before pulling his gore covered hand out of her and flinging another pellet into the metal pot.

“Twenty three” He corrects, flicking some of the blood off before going to the sink.

James catches Kat’s eye; her jade colored iris’ baring into his as they seem to share an unspoken word.

Fuck. The whole situation was totally fucked. Between Aveline’s undeserved death and the fact that they were currently screwed on getting the delivery to Han; the word was fitting.

“And Camila?” Juan wonders.

“She’s at Rubins’ kids’ quinceanera. I’m shocked you’re not there too” James answers him, still looking at Kat who makes a face.

“If I have to go to another quince this year I’m going to blow my brains out” She’d been to four already in the last few months and she was done. She’d just send her “love” and an expensive gift.

 She stands straight, grabs her bag off of the counter beside her and walks out of the chain-link room without another word to either of the men, in a vain attempt to catch her breath.

 _You can figure this out just don’t freak. It can be fixed. Yoga breaths_ Kat’s repeating it like a mantra in her head as she pulls her phone out of her purse, texting Camila.

‘Teresa tried to run’

**_Okay, when I started watching this series I didn’t expect to become as hooked as I am. Like scary, I watched all of season one in two days hooked. And then I came on here looking for some fanfiction and there was only one. Fucking. Story. That is unacceptable. This show is too good, too juicy and fiction worthy to only have one story. So of course I have to write a few of my own. Ya’ll know my love for OC’s, and James Valdez is too droolsome not to write an OC love story about. So enjoy_ ** **_J_ **


	2. Gods and Monsters

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Enough!" In which Camila has to mother children that arent her own.

**_Imma need you all to start writing me some Queen of the South stories because I can’t deal with the fact that there’s only one(which is amazing and you guys should check it out. It’s seriously giving me tons of inspo as I write James) story other than mine in this category and it’s fucking tragic._ **

“How many have we lost?” Camila had been forced to come straight from the quince and was in a mood. Her dark eyes were fixated and hard and her heels clacked impatiently against the concrete as she walked.

“We lost two bags” James answers her.

“Why do they keep bursting?” She’s pissed, this wasn’t the first time in the last month that this had happened. She had lost not only product, but one of her best mules.  It was bad business, and Camila Vargas didn’t do bad business.

Zeferino and The Charger are standing together at the end of the make shift hallway and its Juan who informs Donna Camila that it was the new chemist who doesn’t know what’s happening.

 “Why are you calling him the new chemist? He’s the old chemist now” Camila’s voice is cutting “And since you found him, you tell him” She casts at James who just gives her a solemn nod. He knew what “telling” him meant.

“Han’s plane is leaving soon. Have you thought of a way of delivering to him?” Camila grills, not looking at Juan but looking forward; to the back corner of the warehouse. The metal fenced room is what she uses as the interrogation room, and at the small table Kat sits across from Teresa.

She wonders what their talking about. She knows Kat, knows the girl has a way of getting people to tell her things. A demeanor that almost demanded trust, those doe eyes and dimpled smile could deceive just about anyone.

“No, not yet- I mean that’s basically what happened no-“ The Charger starts to blubber a bit and the woman rolls her eyes and brushes past him.

They could, and would if they wanted to keep their jobs, figure it out. In the meantime, Camila was curious to what the two girls were currently discussing.

“Donna Camila” Kat greets with a grin as she stands and one of the workers opens the door for the short haired woman to join the two in the interrogation room.

“Katrina, sit down please. I was just coming to join your conversation” Camila puts a tender hand on the younger girls upper arm and without even having to ask, the same man who’d opened the door for her comes and drags a third chair to the table, holding it out for her to sit.

“So, you’re a runner” Camila states, seeming almost amused. Almost.

Teresa’s still curled up on the chair; everything about her body language is terrified. Worn down. But not her eyes. There’s still that defiant spark, her facial expressions’ hard.

Kat already knows that’s not going to fly.

When Camila takes out her phone and places it on the table, face up, speaker on- Kat also knows what’s about to happen.

“Yeah?”

“Epifanio”

“Yes, hello, my love” Don Epifanio’s voice chimes from the speaker and Teresa visibly shrinks.

“Why are you sending me stupid message at night about some girl” Camila slightly grins at a silent Teresa.

“Just like I said, this girl I’m looking for-I believe she coming to cross the border in Texas. Her name is Teresa Mendoza. Do you remember her? She was Gueros’ girlfriend”

It almost echo’s the conversation he’d had with Kat earlier in the morning, and again Kat is struck by the curiosity of what in the fuck this poor girl knew, or had done. Or even would do.

“Yeah, I think so” It’s almost comical, at least for Kat, to watch the married couple play cat and mouse. She listens, biting her cheek in an attempt to keep a chuckle at bay. Sick fucks.

“Probably smart enough to know that you are in Texas, so she knows not to be there”

Teresa’s frown is etched deep at the sound of Epifanio. She’s tensed up, just waiting for Camila to inform him that she was there, to tell him to come retrieve her. That he could have her.

“What did she do to you?”

“That puta and Guero stole money from me. He’s dead“ Teresa fails at hiding her wince, at hiding the deep wave of sadness that rushes over her and Kat watches her face fall from that stony strength to something sad. Watery.

“You need more money, sweetie?” Camila taunts.

“Enough of these people stealing from me. I have to send a message; you know what I’m talking about. It’s about principles now and you know I’m very principled-”

What the fuck is going on? Kat wonders. Epifanio was going on about Teresa like he had rehearsed it. Like it was one of his campaign speeches.

“-Like any leader of the good people of Mexico should be.  Listen, if you find this girl, let me know. I’ve already spoken with Katrina, and told her the same. If you can find Teresa…maybe I can do something nice for you”

Kat rolls her eyes, hard. Bribery. It wasn’t unusal for the man, when you have that much money you can buy just about anything- but him and Camila had been at odds as of late. And he hadn’t been very cheritable with the estranged Camila.

This girl really did have some major information; she had Don Epifanio tied in knots.

“Yeah I won’t hold my breath” click, Camila hangs up on him without saying goodbye with a grin on her face.

“So, is that all Guero did to him? Steal?”

“I don’t know anything” Teresa says, giving Kat a small look before her eyes flashed back to Camila. She’s thinking about her previous conversation with the girl, before Camila walked in.

_If I were you, I would tell her what she wants to know. It’s the easier route, and trust me when I say you don’t want to go down the harder one. I remember Guero talking about you, you know? I don’t think he’d want you to get yourself killed, and that’s what’s going to happen if you don’t tell us what happened back in Mexico, Teresa. Camila can’t protect you if she doesn’t know what she’s protecting._

“You must me worth more than money to my husband. I know him” Camila leans forward, onyx hair swaying as she clasps her hands on the table in front of her “Why does he want you dead so badly?”

“I don’t know” There’s that defiance again “I’m just the girlfriend”

Wrong answer.

“Right” Camila looks her up and down, that grin still hasn’t left her ruby colored lips “Well, since you’re so good at being a girlfriend, I’m gonna’ make you a girlfriend to a lot of people” Camila then stands and waits just a moment for Kat to get up and follow suit.

She does, she looks at Teresa who’s starting to look a little panicked and non-verbally shrugs. She’d told her to tell Camila the truth, warned her. Whatever happened to her now was her own fault.

“Drug her up and put her to work” Camila instructs in Spanish.

Kat knows what Camila’s doing. Spending the last two years of her life with this woman as a mentor; she’d learned a lot.

No one wants to be drugged up, at least not at first.

Teresa’s screeches rattle the room as Zeferino and Angel yank her from the corner she’s backed herself into; forcing her belly down onto the cold metal table as The Charger gets the needle full of heroine ready.

Watching the scene from the doorway with her arms folded over her chest, Kat’s face is blank. She’d seen worse than this, done worse. She reassures herself that this won’t cloud her conscience.  She glances at James whose jaw is clenched uncomfortably. Kat knew James hated shit like this. Manipulation, mind games weren’t his thing. She’s always torn between wanting to tell him to suck it up(like he had told her plenty of times) and appreciating that he seemed to secretly cling to his humanity.

“No” Teresa’s cries fall to deaf ears, and it’s only when The Charger is just about to inject her that Camila intervenes.

“Do you remember something now?” the older woman pushes a stray lock of curly hair away from the still pinned down Teresa’s face “Something that you did to Epifanio? Together, with your boyfriend?

Either Teresa has will power made of steel, or she really doesn’t know anything because with tears rolling down her face she answers no again.

Kat can’t help but shake her head. This bitch is crazy.

“Wait!” Teresa calls, as Camila; the only thing standing between her and a bloodstream bull of heroine, starts to exit the room.

“I can be more for you. I’ll deliver the drugs”

Everyone in the rooms head snaps to the girl, and then they’re all looking at each other.

Zeferino harshly pulls Teresa so she’s standing to face Camila with her arms pinned to her chest.

“I heard what you said. I’ll deliver the drugs that your mule didn’t”

She really is fucking insane, Kat ogles and James grimaces a little.

She’s just going to end up another corpse they have to deal with.

“Well if you heard us, you know there’s problems with the balloons. –The police, as much as we know what they’re doing, they know what we’re doing. They can stop the car you’re in” Camila hints at the fact that it’s almost certain death, without our rightly saying it.

“I said I’d do it”

* * *

 

Kat’s walking with James and Camila down one of the ‘build it yourself’ hallways.

“Get her prepped” Camila demands of James.

“What’s the point? She’ll just die too”

“Don’t worry about her, better her then a girl you spend months training”

“I don’t care about her” Liar, Kat accuses in her head. James does care. About everything. Too damn much.

‘It’s your Cancer moon’ She’d informed him before and the snort he’d given in reply was almost painful.

“I care about getting those drugs to Han. But if she dies first what’s that point?”

“The point is this is probably our only way to do that. Unless of course you have a better idea?” Kat snaps.

“We’ll figure something out. It’s going to be a waste of product and money if we let her do this”

“Hmm, would you like to swallow the balloons then, James? Because last I checked that’s the only way they’re getting through TCA”

He glares hardly down at Kat and even though she’s nearly a foot shorter than him the malice rolls off of her in waves.

She could be such a cunt sometimes.

Especially to him.

“If you would take two minutes to actually think this thro-“

“I am thinking. Thinking that you managed to find the shittiest fucking chemist in the state and that’s why we’re in this mess”

“I didn’t see you looking for a chemist at all”

“That wasn’t my job!”

“Enough!” Camila’s voice is stern and it silences them both. Something that she found she was having to do quite a lot lately. The two seemed to bring out the childishness in eachother; in red hot spurts, and she was really getting sick of having to break up these little spats.

“You-“ Donna Camila addressed James “Hired a chemist you shouldn’t have. So you don’t have any other choice but to drive faster, do you? Han is an important client. He get’s his shipment. So you? You can take comfort in knowing you had no choice. And you-“ She is then looking at an indignant looking Kat “Go make sure that girl gets those ballon’s down and her false identifications are set up correctly, You’re wasting time we don’t have.

 Stop bickering and get it done”  

And then both women are walking away from James and he’s left for a moment cursing the fact that his job entailed working with two of the most demanding females he’d ever met.

“Look at me” James directs Teresa as he holds a professional looking camera up and snaps a photo of her “You’re going to need a passport”

“Try to crop as much of her shirt out as you can. We don’t have enough time for her to change and it’s going to look suspicious as fuck if they can tell she’s in the same outfit her passport picture was taken in” Kat points out.

James wouldn’t have thought of that. He’s not surprised she did though; the way that girls mind worked was a fucking mystery to him. Impressive and endlessly annoying.

“Hurry!”

It leaned towards annoying.

* * *

 

Watching Teresa shove the 23 balloons down her throat was fascinating. And foul. And difficult. She choked a couple times, struggled and had to stop to catch her breath. It doesn’t help that Camila’s standing right infront of her waiting for a sign or weakness, waiting for the girl to crack. Kat really does feel sorry for her.

Kat also knows this is the only way to stay relevant for Teresa. To prove that she’s worth keeping, at least for the moment.

“17

18,-22” The Charger’s counting them off as Teresa swallows.

“Keep going” James is firm when Teresa chokes on one of the pellets and with watery eyes pauses “Just one more”

That seems to push the curly headed girl because she swallows the last one strongly.

“There, that’s 23” Kat’s impressed. She herself had a gag reflex that was almost laughable. No way could she have ever pulled off what Teresa just had.

“Don’t drink or eat anything else until they come up okay? The acids in your stomach will break them down faster if you do” Kat warns.

“The plane leaves in about forty minutes. You understand they could dissolve before then” Kat fights the urge to roll her eyes at James’ comment.  Duh, Teresa understood- that this was her only fucking chance to not become some drugged up street worker.

Teresa just nods.

The four of them; Camila, Kat, James and Teresa walk out of the room, start twordes the exit and Camila pulls Teresa aside a bit.

“Here” Kat hands the freshly made passport to James as Camila and Teresa discuss something about the patron saint Malverde.

“Thanks” he guff’s as he looks it over, assessing, memorizing. That was one his things, that memory of his was nearly photographic.

“Don’t get yourself arrested today” Kat’s words would be harsh harsh, but they come out of that smiling mouth of hers and instead sound sincere.

“I’ll do my best” And then he’s shooting her a glance over his shoulder as him and Teresa hurry out of the warehouse.

For the hour that passes Kat sit’s tensely in one of the hard chairs, arms crossed as she tries(and fails) not to worry about what could or couldn’t be going on at the airport. She plays aimlessly on her phone- tries to keep up conversation with the guys. Camila has gone to some meeting, one of many, and left her back at the mule house.

* * *

 

“Don’t worry, mija, you know James” Tonto reassures “He’ll make the delivery, we’ll get the money”

Yeah. Money. That’s definitely all she was worried about.

“I know.  I’m not”

If she wasn’t worried, then why does the text-

 ‘Got out okay-no prison time’

 -make the ton of bricks lift off her chest? She can finally take a deep breath.

“I want asada fries. Do you guys want asada fries?” She only now realized she had never eaten breakfast.

* * *

 

It was late getting late, far past eleven o’clock when James walks into the club. Clambering past the few people that were still scattered around the bar and dance floor, to make his way up to Camila’s office.

He was feeling decent: he wasn’t in federal prison. Han had gotten his delivery, and the guys had food waiting for him when he’d gotten back from the airport with Teresa. An overstuffed torta; all the works. He’d snarfed it down at an alarming rate, thanking them. He never really had time to eat.

“Thank Kat. She bought lunch”

Not even the snippy texts from Kim, the ‘am I even going to see you tonight’s, really put a damper on his mood.

 So when he enters Camila’s office and see’s both of the women he works with sitting across from each other,  pensively gloomy looks on their faces, it kind of stops him in his tracks a little bit.

“Hey, she did it” He lightly diffuses, testing the water as he collapses into the plush seat beside the one Kat sits on.  He runs the hand that doesn’t hold his lit cigarette over his face. It had really been a long one.

Camila purses her lips, and nods. “Epifanio agreed to our terms”

James gives both of them a speedy once over “You don’t seem pleased about that”

“I just don’t think he would concede so easily”

Fucking women, he thinks but of course doesn’t say aloud. Fucking twisted powerful women.

“Maybe he’s reaching out. Maybe it’s his way of making peace?”  He offers the elder.

“Or maybe he doesn’t think we’re going to be here next year” Camila reasons, and he hadn’t really thought of it that way.

Working with Camila- and Kat had left him with an almost bitter logic. Yeah, he’d been through some shit, done a lot of shit. But psychological warfare had never been on his resume. Until now. He takes a long drag of the cig.

“You know this Mendoza girl? I need both of you to keep an eye on her. I think she might be more useful than I thought. I want you to talk to her, make her trust you. Tell her that if she’s thinking of running away, she shouldn’t. If she’s thinking of going to the police, they will send her to the ICE and they’ll ship her right back to Mexico. And sooner, rather than later, my husband will find her.

 Tell her; if she wants to die she should run. If she wants to live, she should stay with me”

Camila then stands, grabbing her purse. As she walks by she tenderly pats and smooth’s Kats hair before squeezes James shoulder.

She leaves them alone in her currant toned office.

Kat’s been unusually quiet. The girl almost never shuts up and he turns to her as he puffs on smoke.

“What are you thinking?” How many times a day did he want to ask her that? A million? More probably. He looks her over; her arms that are folded over her chest as per usual. She’s slouching into the seat, looking tired.

“I just want to keep…on top of this situation between Camila and Epifanio. It could get super fucking messy and I don’t want it to” She answers, her hand raised to her mouth as she thinks out loud. She looks as if she might chew on her thumbnail.

James nods. He’s not into the idea of this couples spat fucking up business either.

“Whatever- we’ll deal with it I guess. I’m going to head home” She starts to gather her things, to shrug back into her white blazer. She flicks her long caramel hair out of the back collar, not noticing the way his eyes hadn’t left her.

“See you tomorrow. Night, James” Kat shoots as she slides past him, bee-lining for the door.

“Yeah, see you” He really does try not to watch her ass sway as she leaves.


	3. Diet Mountain Dew

Kat’s sat in the lavish loveseat in Camila’s office, her heels kicked off and her legs outstretched to rest criss-crossed on the glass coffee table in front of her as she spoons her muesli absent mindedly and reads through a twitter article about ‘Britney’s latest meltdown’ on her phone.

Really, she’s waiting for Camila. She had been for nearly an hour and had she known the woman would take so long to get to the club, Kat probably would have slept in longer.

 _The early bird has her pick of the worms_ the words Camila had once told her rang in her head.

When Kat hears the shuffle of impending feet from outside the door she quickly takes her feet off the table and slips them back into the expensive pumps she’d came in, knowing she’d face a scolding from Camila if caught with her feet on the furniture.

“Katrina, I’m sorry. The meeting lasted longer than I thought it would. You get that man talking and he doesn’t stop” Camila explains as she walks into her office and see’s Kat waiting. She acknowledges it silently. That girl used to be late for everything.

“It’s okay. Did Rubin tell you anything useful?” Kat questions, taking one last big bite of the fruity oats and then placing them on the glass table, ready to go sit closer to Camila’s desk. But the dark haired woman just sets her handbag down on the desk and then comes over to the table, sitting on the small sofa across from Kat, her legs crossing at the knee.

“A bit. The girl was a money changer before she met Guero, she grew up in the slums” Camila starts.

“She was only with Guero for like a year right? I remember him talking about her” Kat by no means had ever been close friends with the recently deceased Guero, but she’d known him. They’d been thrown together at social events plenty of times over the years; and it wasn’t unlike Kat to ignore a pretty face. And by god, that boy had been pretty. Those high cheek bones and green eyes. Swoon worthy.

Shame, she thinks. That he went and got himself killed.

“More. Almost three. Rubin was able to get into their old house, but he couldn’t find anything. I’m sure my husbands the one that swept it clean.  Guero didn’t only steal from him; he had someone in with the Federales. They’d seize shipments, and he’d re-sell it for himself” 

Fucking idiot. He grew up in this life, he should of known better. Eventually, you always get caught.

“How exactly did he get caught?” Kat wonders.

“I don’t know all the details, but what I know is Batman is the one who killed him. Him and Epfanio must of gotten a tip- and Epfanio sent his dog to do the dirty work. Pote and Gato handled the cousin”

Kat shakes her head stiffly. What she remembers about Chino is that he had a son. He had talked about the kid non-stop. And he had gotten the kid killed.  What kind of twisted cosmic irony was that? Even she still had reserves about kids.

“Greedy fucks”

Camila nods. Greedy fucks indeed.

“We won’t be able to get to Teresa through family- she has none. Epfanio had everyone she cared about wiped out”

Of course, Kat could’ve guessed that. It’s what any smart business man in this world would do, try to get to the person through their loved ones.

“Which means were going to have to get to her another way. We’re going to have to get her to trust us” Camila gives Kat a pointed look “I need you to take her under your wing. Make her feel safe, make her listen to you. I know your people skills are one of your greatest assets, Kat. I need you to use them”

Kat would laugh, but it would reveal to Camila that she had learned the other woman’s tactics. And boy, had she. The complementing? Yeah. That was one her many ways of manipulation.

“I can do that. We’ll need James’ help though; he’s going to be spending the most time with her since he usually does all the mule runs. She’ll trust him before she trusts anybody” Kat’s right. James had a special effect on those girls(well most women in general) but those girls specifically. He treated them nice, like humans beings, and Kat had on multiple occasions seen the gaga looks he was treated with at the warehouse.

“I’ll make sure he plays his part but I trust you with this more. Be her friend, she’s just suffered a terrible loss. I’m sure she needs someone to talk to and I want that person to be you”

Kat just nods, already thinking of how to accomplish that goal. It wouldn’t be hard; she’d never had a hard time befriending anyone really. Extroverted to the extreme, Kat had been blessed with the ability to charm the holy living hell out of just about anyone. Camila knew this.

“James has a delivery to make to Lopez today, I want you to go with him and make sure he brings Teresa. I need to test her, make sure that we can trust her”

“Arent we trying to get her trust us?” Kat points out and Camila lets out a little laugh, reclining back a bit on the couch.

“Trust is a two way street, hija. And I need to know she’s worth the effort before I put anymore into her. I’ll message you before anything happens to let you know, but don’t tell James. He doesn’t need to know what’s going on until after. He has no…finesse when it comes to matters like this”

Kat purses her lips. He’ll be pissed at being kept out of the loop.

“Alright”

It’s a bright and blistering day in Dallas and even the pair of oversized and overpriced sunglasses perched on Kat’s nose doesn’t keep the sun at bay as she walks through the parking lot of the warehouse.

She hoped for storms. Big ones that lasted days.

She’s about to exit the graffiti covered building when James comes walking out, two girls in tow.

“Ah, just the man I was looking for” Kat greets and James looks down at her, eyebrow cocked.

“Yeah? What’s up?”

“Nothing much, I’m just going to come with you to make the delivery to Lopez today. If that’s okay” She adds that ‘if that’s okay’ at the end to sate him. To make him feel like he has a choice. He was more pliable when he wasn’t being restricted, bossed around. Kat had noticed that almost instantly about him.

Yeah he was a good little soldier, but he did best when left to his own devices. When he was his own boss.

Plus she wasn’t really trying to piss him off right now. Not when she knew what Camila was going to pull sometime during the day and he didn’t.

“That’s fine, I have to make a stop at the savings club first” He warns and she shrugs.

“Savings club first, got it. I need a coconut water anyway”

Kat wonders how in the holy hell he doesn’t die in all that black he always wears. She’s sure she’d get heatstroke if she tried a wardrobe choice like that.

“I’ll go get Teresa”  Kat then says, the cheer in her voice turned up to a thousand as she tries to nonchalantly walk past James. He stops her almost instantly, grabbing her elbow and making her teeter backwards on her heels a little bit. She glares up at him.

“What?” She hisses.

“We’re not taking Teresa”

“Yes we are”

“Why would we do that?” He questions hardly.

“Because I want your opinion on her, okay? You’re good at reading people and I need you to help me out” Kat cajoles, doing her best to convince him without out having to throw around the fact that she was his fucking boss, and she didn’t _have_ to ask him permission at all.

“I appreciate that, but she’s got no experience. We can’t take the risk” James is not about to take some half-cocked girl he barley knows on another run. Yeah, she’d pulled her weight at the airport. They’d made the deal and avoided getting arrested but that was beginners luck. He wasn’t about to risk it.

Plus, unbeknownst to Kat, he’d just told Teresa back in the warehouse to lie low.

“It’s important to Camila” Kat pushes on, her resolve on not pissing him off fading.

This is what always fucking happened with James. She’d try to be nice and he’d be a jerk. And then she’d have no choice but to be a bitch in return. It was their cycle.

“Just like staying out of jail and not getting killed is to me. She has no idea what she’s doing and you know Lope-“

“Christ, James, this is not an option, okay?” Kat’s done working around his ego “It’s an order. From Camila”

And they both know that an order wasn’t to be questioned. He deflates a little, even though he’s exasperated at being over-powered.

“Okay. I’ll go get her” He makes a move, but Kat’s faster.

“No, I’ve got her; we’ll meet you in the truck”

“It’s the black Toyota four door!” He calls to her retreating back and she fights the urge to flip him off.

Camila sits in her office, miles away at the club. Watching the entire exchange on her computer screen.

Kat hurries, taking big steps with her short legs, into the warehouse, and to the area where mules slept.

Click, clack, click, clack.

Teresa’s head rises at the sound of heels and she spots Kat walking towards the gate.

“Hey” The girl greets and Teresa just sits up on the edge of her bed, curious.

“Hey”

“Come on, Camila wants you to come to the Superstore with us. Hurry up, though. We’re running a little late and James’ panties are already in a twist” The short girl informs Teresa, jutting her head in the direction of the exit door and Teresa stands up fast following her out.

As they walk to the truck Kat digs around in her purse. Prada, Teresa notes. The young looking girl pulls out a container of cubed gum and pops one into her mouth. She then looks at Teresa, offering her a piece.

Teresa hesitates for just a moment but then nods, agreeing to let the girl shake out a cube into her palm. She hadn’t brushed her teeth in days.

“Thank you”

“No problem”

When James pulls into the Savings Club lot, both Kat and Teresa un-buckle, ready to follow him inside.

“Nope. Just Julie and Tina” He stops both women, Julie and Tina hop out and wait for him outside of the car.

“What? Why?” Kat protests, her voice indignant.

“Because you’ll draw too much attention in that outfit” James tells her. It wasn’t that the below-knee length olive dress and cropped leather jacket was revealing or anything. Even though it clung to the curves of her body and Kat was all curves.

It was that she looked…expensive. The Prada hanging from her arm and the Rossi on her feet were bold. The gold watch on her wrist, bold. Eye catching. And James always went into these things incognito; he couldn’t have her clicking beside him dressed head to toe in designer.

“That’s bullshit but whatever I guess. I’m keeping the AC running”

“And you” He turns to Teresa who’s in the back seat and reaches into his jacket pocket “This is your cell phone now. If anything happens- - you see something strange, something that makes you feel weird. Some dude walks past with his dog twice, you call. There’s a preset number” James instructs as he hands her back the cell phone.

“What’s going on in there?” Teresa quizzes.

“You said you wanted the job. So you’ve got it” Is all James replies before exiting the car, slamming the door shut behind him.

“He’s picking up a shipment” Kat says as she tweaks the radio, trying to find something decent to listen to. “That’s why he needed Julie and Tina”

“And why did you guys bring me?”

“So you can learn. James spends months training girls usually, but from what he told me about the airport, you kind of seem like a natural” Kat settles on a station that’s blairing Fleetwood Mac and turns it up.

_It’s only me that wants to wrap around your dreams and have you any dreams you’d like to sell?_

Kat bobs her head to the tune, humming it as she starts to play with her phone. Teresa watches the girl, the way her silky golden brown hair that’s straightened pin straight today sways to the rhythm. She even catches a small peek of the social media app she’s going through on the screen of her iPhone.

“How old are you?” Teresa’s been wanting to ask her since she met her. With her features, she really can’t tell. Kat’s short, even in the pumps she wears and her lined eyes are youthful.  She could pass for a teenager honestly.

“Twenty four” Kat answers simply not looking away from her phone. “Most people guess younger though. You?”

Twenty four is still young as hell, Teresa thinks. Too young to be a second to one of the biggest drug bosses in the world.

“Thirty one” Teresa responds “I would have guessed twenty one at least, I heard you talking about margaritas the other day”

Kat chuckles. Ah, so while she was watching Teresa, Teresa was watching her.

“I drank long before I was legal so that might have been a flawed method”  Teresa cracks a smile, in spite of herself.

-Get out of the car. It’s time- Kat opens the text from Camila and then closes it fast, keeping composed. Thinking of a way ,non suspiciously, to make her exit.

“I just know he’s going to forget to get me something to drink and he’s not answering my texts- fuck it. I’ll be right back” Kat complains before she opens her door.

“He told us to stay in the car” Teresa points out hesitantly.

“I don’t work for James” Kat argues, venom laced at the thought as she slides down onto the asphalt. Having short legs sucked. “I’m gonna’ leave the AC on for you okay?”

Teresa nods and then watches Kat leave. Watches her all the way until she’s entered the store before she unlocks her new phone, dialing the number to the hair salon that she’d told Brenda to wait for her call in.

Five minutes later, she’s being snatched from her place in the back of the truck be strong, unforgiving arms.

Epfanio’s men, her alert, panicking mind screams. When she realizes it’s the DEA, she relaxes but only for a minute.

I’m going to jail, she thinks.

When James goes to drop Julie and Tina, whose arms are full of the decoy groceries, back at the truck he’s surprised to see Kat sitting on one of the benches- outside of the fucking car.

God, could she ever listen?

Taking a look from where he’s standing into the interior of the Toyota, he can see Teresa’s missing as well.

Something liken to anger bubbles in his gut.

“Here- you know what to do. Take the truck back to the warehouse, okay” He hands Tina the key’s he’s fished from his pocket and when she gives him an understanding nod he turns away from her.

Kat can’t deny the butterflies that tear apart her stomach as James approaches in long strides. They aren’t good butterflies either.

“What the hell is going on?” He seethes lowly enough to not cause a scene but pissed enough that it makes her internally wince as he tosses a bag into her lap. She looks down at it, and pulls a boxed coconut water from its contents.

“Come on, let’s go deliver that shipment. I’ll explain on the way there, okay?”

**_New chapter, I’m still obsessed to the max lol. So enjoy!_ **


	4. Brooklyn Baby

“So that’s why you wanted to come today. None of that ‘I need your opinion’ bullshit, huh?” James is still pissed and is taking jagged turns. Accelerating when he doesn’t need to in the delivery truck full of blow they’d taken from the store.

She’s scared of his driving on a good day.

She’s petrified of his driving currently.

“Stop driving like a fucking idiot! You’re going to get pulled over” Kat screeches “And no, I really do need your opinion” She ignores his scoff “But Camila said she needed to susse her out. I didn’t even know what exactly was going to happen until it was happening, okay?”

“So you didn’t know that Camila was going to pull this DEA stunt? At a place where we fucking pick up?” He questions non-believingly.

“Not exactly”

He wants to punch the wheel. Wants to wring her little neck.

“You do know Bill is probably so shitted that he’s never going to want to do business with us again, right?”

“Bill will do what Bill gets paid to do. It doesn’t matter if he’s scared- James, stop!” Kat has one hand firmly on the dashboard, gripping it for dear life.

“It’s not a game, Kat! Camila can’t just keep playing it as though there’s no repercussions for her actions.  I had no idea any of this was going to happen, what if I would have reacted? And done something that would have jeopardized the shipment?”

“Look, I’m going to say this nicely as I can- sometimes your poker face isn’t as great as you think it is. I can tell you don’t like playing mind games and shit, but sometimes they’re necessary. Especially with this girl. You didn’t know Guero, James. I barely knew him and I knew the guy was trouble. He was smart as fuck, and he didn’t care whether he lived or he died. I remember hearing a story about him landing an airplane on –like- an eight foot strip of rock. And then he got in with the feds to steal from Epfiano. If Teresa has even a sliver of that Guero trouble, we need to know about it” Kat tries to explain to him, tries to cool him down.

And it works. A little.

“I get that, Kat. I really do, but I can’t do my job right if I don’t know what I’m contending with. I need you to be straight up with me. I know Camila…well I know Camila. But I also know you, and I need you to tell me next time something like this is going to go down because I would tell you”

At his words, Kat does feel a little guilty. Looking down at the coconut water in her lap, the one she’d only briefly mentioned to him that she wanted, makes it worse. For as much as they fought she had an enormous amount of respect for him. She felt safe around him. She trusted him.

And she had just majorly broken that trust.

She would be livid if him and Camila went behind her back the way she had just done to him.

_Because I would tell you_

And she truly believed he would.

“Okay. Next time I’ll tell you. But you’ve got to work on your poker face, because if I’m going to be lying to Camila for you I can’t be getting caught okay”  She jokes, glad for the smile that graces his features even though he tries to shake it off.

“I have a great poker face; I don’t know what you’re talking about”

“My ass” She rolls her eyes and he chuckles a little, before his phone dings and he pulls it out to read the impending text. He makes a U-turn at the light they’re stopped at.

“What is it?”

“She passed” James answers.

When the Semi truck skirts in front of Teresa, honking once to her attention she looks up and sees James and Kat waiting for her and feels a pang in her stomach as she climbs in and onto the back bench.

“We didn’t even know that was going to happen” James starts and Teresa glares hard at the dirty floor of the vehicle as she rubs her wrists where the cuffs had bruised her skin.

Mentirosos.

Liars.

“I did- James really didn’t though. He was just as pissed as you are now” Kat tells her truthfully, knowing the girl can see straight through the bs any way “She did it to us to. Tested the trust, and you passed the test. So I would apologize- but I don’t really see what for”

Teresa’s torn between the irritation of being toyed with- and the appreciation of Kat actually being honest with her. Even if it was brutal.

“The thing you need to understand s that’s who she is. The second you think you know where you are- the ground shifts beneath you” James starts to chastise and Kat fights the urge to roll her eyes.

He has this weird love hate thing with Camila. Kat knows how conniving the queen of coke can be but James resentment is different. He loves Camila and hates Camila. He’d die for her and yet he can’t stand her.

It’s kind of sick really, and Kat has correlated it to the man’s mommy issues.

‘You can’t really hate who signs your checks, can you?’ she’d told him before.

“I told you to be careful, that’s the last time I’m gonna talk about this” James finishes in that tone of his and both Teresa and Kat are silent for the duration of the ride.

When they pull up to the small garden shop Teresa doesn’t miss a beat.

“Who’s the guy with the hose, the one you just nodded to?” She questions James.

“We own him. If you ever see him watering his plants and he doesn’t stop by the time I get there, I keep driving” James explains simply. Teaching and Teresa absorbs it all.

Kat sees Lopez approaching in the rearview. “There he is”

“There’s our buyer” James seconds as he puts the delivery truck back into gear and turns onto the next street, pulling up close to the shops back entrance and parking.  When the two sitting in the front go to get out of the car, Teresa unbelts herself too. Set on following them.

I’m not being left behind again, she thinks.

“What are you doing?” James stops her.

“I want to meet him” Teresa insists.

“No you don’t want to meet him. If he sees your face, he knows you. She knows you know him. See how that works?” James is really getting sick of people not listening to him.

“If I know too much I’m indispensable. If I know too little, I’m disposable”

Kat quirks her mouth. Fuck, this girl really is something else.

“Come on, you can come” Kat tells her as she exits, ignoring the looks James is giving her.  

“Sometimes I wonder if I talk just to hear myself speak” He glares down at the two women as the go to join the buyer.

“Lopez” James shakes the older mans hand and Kat smiles that smile of hers as she reaches to shake his next.

“It’s good to see you again, how’s the wife?” Kat addresses him, trying to get that look on his face to dissipate.

He’s looking at Teresa with malice-ful distrust.

“Same old same old- who’s she?”

“She’s new. She’s running with me” James answers Lopez.

“I don’t like “new” James. I like faces I know. Where’s Aveline?”

Kat tries not to flinch. She really does.

“She OD’d”

Teresa watches her three companion’s faces as James informs Lopes on Aveline’s untimely death. No one looks happy about it.

“Shame”

“It really is, but it’s business” Kat counters, not liking Lopez’s body language at all.

“I don’t like this”

“Look, if you have a problem you can take it up with Camila. I can sell this load somewhere else” James is a salesman, true to heart, and he’s aware that threating to take away the product will make Lopez want it more.

He’s right. Of course.

Because after a few moments of the older man glaring Teresa up and down, grilling her wordlessly, he agrees.

“All right. You vouch for her? Take responsibility for her?”

Lopez is aiming this at James, but it’s Kat that answers.

“I do. And you know my family, Lopez. We always pay our dues” Kat’s answer is sharply laced. She’s throwing around that family name of hers. That family name that’s drenched in blood. Nobody fucks with the Colombians.

She hates that her father’s sur name, one that wasn’t even on her birth certificate, which causes so much impact. She hated it, but fuck, did she use it.

And Lopez knows this. Knows it’s time to shut his mouth.

The wooden office inside Lopez auto shop makes Kat anxious. The false wooden pallets on the walls make it more box like and she swallows a feeling of unease as she stands watching Lopez at his desk; testing the coke.

Something’s off. She knows it. She can f _eel_ it.

Don’t mistrust your feelings she’d been taught. She was waiting for a moment alone with James, to grab him and ask him if he could feel the unbalance in the air.

“90% pure” Lopez announces as he finishes up his testing and Kat wishes should could tell him when had their coke not been pure? He’d been buying for months and he’d never been let down.

“There’s a hundred kilos as promised. I just need to check the money and we can all go home” James promises and one of Lopez’s men, the one with a man pun lifts a hefty looking suit case onto the desk.

James has done this a thousand times; check money. Make sure it’s not counterfeit. So as he goes through the process, thoroughly, he doesn’t really suspect that anything is going on.

Doesn’t hear nor feel the alarm bells that the two women behind him are most definitely noticing,

Kat doesn’t really know why she’s feeling what she is. Call it instinct. Call it her “psychic” powers she claimed to have. She just knew something was off.

Teresa on the other hand had watched that man, the one with the pony tail, crack his knuckles and neck repeatedly and was going over things Guero had taught her in the past in her head. 

Even when James decides the moneys good and it’s time to wrap up, she can hear Guero’s words in her head.

When Lopez and the three workers he’d brought into the office with him leave to go unload, Kat jumps at the chance. Finally, they’re alone. The moment the men are completely out of the office, both Kat and Teresa start.

“James”

“Wait”

Kat and Teresa give each other a look; they’d spoken at the same time.

Teresa can see the hesitance in the younger woman’s eyes, and it seems to reassure her  somewhere deep inside that she’s right. Something’s going on.

“What?” James turns to both of them, but doesn’t stop packing the money away.

“Can I see the money?” Teresa asks.

“Is there a problem?” James sounds unsure, slowly.

“Let her see the money, James” Kat barks and he’s confused now. Why is her voice so tight?

“What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know. Maybe nothing. But I feel off…you do too right?” Kat confesses, looking at Teresa who nods.

“Can I see it” Teresa presses on again and James looks down for a moment, pensive before unzipping the case letting the curly haired woman pass.

Kat peeks out of the office window, to make sure Lopez and his men are still busy unloading, before stepping up closer to stand beside the two by the case.

Teresa goes back over the money, but the way she does it is far different then James’ tactic. She feels each piece of money, every bill. Rubs it between her fingers.

“This one is fake” She decides, holding up a bill for James to take. “They’re ripping you off. All U.S. money paper weighs a gram. This one is too light”

“I don’t see it” James is still not completely convinced.

“You don’t see it you feel it. The difference between a real one and a fake- is the paper”

“Are you sure?” Kat questions her, even though she knows the woman is right.

“I was a money changer for five years in Sinaloa. My life depended on it”

“It still does. You accuse these men of cheating us and it’s a mistake-“ James starts to warn of the impending fight. Of the consequences and Teresa cuts him off.

“In Sinaloa” She takes the left side of her long hair and lifts it up, showing them a thick prominent scar in her hairline “you don’t make a mistake with your bosses’ money. I spent five weeks in the hospital. I’ll never make that mistake again”

There’s a moment of silence, and it’s heavy, as the three stand together. Trying to figure out what exactly the next step is.

It’s broken when Lopez re-enters his office.

“Hey” He doesn’t get a response “something the matter?”

James’ mind is made up, even though he still has doubts. Fuck it, he decides. He’s going to back them. It might get them killed, but he’s going to do it.

He stands straight, shoulders wide and goes up to Lopez, holding one of the bundles up in front of the mans face.

“I’m going to need to weigh this bill” James informs him.

“You think I’m cheating you?” Lopez is obviously offended.

Kat bites the inside of her lip, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. She could feel the tension rising. She knew where this could go.

“I don’t know, but the girl thinks this bill is fake” James walks to the other side of the desk, where the scale is still sitting. “So then you won’t mind if I weight it”

“You’re embarrassing me”

Kat stays quiet. Men and their egos. She knows that her saying anything right now, will just fuel the fire.

“If she’s wrong, I demand reparations”

When Lopez pulls out his gun, clocking it, and aiming it at Teresa’s head Kat stiffens. She’d had guns pointed at her, a few times actually. But that feeling, the knot in your chest when someone aims-ready to shoot. It never goes away.

Her nostrils flare as she sucks in a breath and her and Teresa’ eyes lock.

There’s still time to renig…Camila would be pissed if this man killed her poker chip right now. It’d probably get everyone in his little “business” killed aswell…

Kat then meets gazes with James. He looks unsure again, direly so. He looks into her mossy eyes, he can see the worry evidently even though she’s attempting to mask it.

They both, then, look again to Teresa. Because at the moment, this was all on her.

“Weigh the bill. It’ll be less than a gram” She concurs.

Kat’s wound tight as James scales the bill, she only breathes when the scales of truth read that the bill is infact less than a gram.

When she exhales, she then feels fury. That motherfucker still had his gun pointed in their direction, after he had had the nerve to try and cheat them.

“That doesn’t make sense” Lopez defends and Kat snaps.

“If you want you, and every one you care about, to live past the end of the day, you’ll put that fucking gun down now” the authority in the small girl hiss makes Teresa jump a little.

Lopez doesn’t comply instantly.

“You heard me. I said fucking _now_ ”

James needs to diffuse this situation, needs to keep it under control. He knew Kat, knew that that temper of hers could and would get vicious.

He also knew that Lopez didn’t have the balls to hurt her. He’d have a whole cartel at his doorstep if he did.

Which is why the man slowly lowers his gun.

“Let’s try again. Find me another one” James instructs Teresa who reaches over to the stacks of money and feels the cash again, feeling for any impurities.

“Here’s another one” She hands James another counterfeit and once that scare reads that it’s less then a gram again, he pounces. His gun is pulled out, and he shoves it into the gray man’s face as he grabs him by the collar.

“You ripping me off, Lopez? Huh?”

Kat’s hand is inside her purse, her fingers just about touching the cold metal of the pistol that lay at the bottom of the bag. She’d support James, have his back if need be.

“N-no n-no. It wasn’t me! I swear” Lopez tough exterior is cracked. Kat had seen it so many times before. Big, tough men whimpering. A gun in the face would do that to you.

“How did I even put it in there? When we went to get the coke? No, James, Lucian’s the other one that I let handle the money besides me”

She’d seen that too. People would throw their own mothers under the bus in order to live.

“No, no, no. I’ve been working for you for almost nine months, Mr. Lopez. You know me. I never cheated you” Lucian, the man with the pony tail vows. Defends himself. Offering his house keys, claiming his innocence.

“Don’t check his house” Teresa speaks up “check his car. I knew a man who hid it in his car cause then he wouldn’t have to collect it when he had to run. Check his car.”

Kat and James glance at each other.

“Check it. Check every inch” James demands.

Luckily, or maybe not so luckily at least in Lucians case, they happen to be in a body shop. It only takes twenty minutes for his car to be jacked up on one of their machines and for him to be exposed.

“Ah, lookie here” One of Lopez’s men croons in spanish as he unscrews something in the cars under carriage that causes wads of cash to fall to the ground.

Kat can’t help that her eyes flash for a moment to Teresa.

How the fuck had she known that?

Kat thinks of Guero. A sliver of trouble…yeah. Teresa had more than a sliver.

Lucians being held by two men, restrained and Lopez looks like he’s struggling to find words.

He still scared and he should be. One of his guys had stolen from the Vargas cartel. That didn’t just go un accounted for.

“What can we do to make this right?” He reasons and Kat chuckles maliciously. Less than a half an hour ago he’d had his gun whipped out.

James goes to answer him but she puts a hand up softly, telling him to hold on as she turns to Teresa.

“He stole from us. What do you think we should do?” She quizzes a struck looking Teresa. There’s only one answer really. And she want’s the girl to say it.

“Nothing. Just let him go”

James shakes his head from beside them and Kat rolls her eyes, tutting her tongue.

“That’s the wrong answer”  The younger girl sounds disappointed as she turns back to Lopez and gives him a small nod. He knows what to do

“Whats going on in there? Where’s Kat?” Teresa questions as she and James sit in the delivery truck. Kat’s absent, she had stayed back in the Auto Shop with Lopez and the other guys.

“Don’t worry, she had to stay back to make sure they did what they were supposed to do” James hushes the girl. His eyes keep scanning the door though, waiting for Kat’s shape to appear tensely.  He doesn’t particularly like that she was in there alone with those men, but he does know she could hold her own.

“What will they do to him?” Teresa’s uncomfortable- because she knows the answer to that question.

“It’s already done” James simply responds as he sees Kat exit the shop, her sunglasses are pushed back into her head into her head and he can see her eyes.

‘It’s done’ they seem to say.

He reaches over and pushes the door open for her as she approaches and climbs into the truck, they’re off the moment she’s in.

“See? This is why I never fucking ride with you James”  Kat’s gripping the armrest with white knuckles. James is calm now, delighted even. They’d been saved from being skimped fifty grand.

And yet still his driving was borderline psychotic.

Kat wonders if he only drives like a mad man when she’s in the car, because that shit eating grin on his face indicates just how amusing he thinks her fearing for her life is. 

Like he would ever let anything happen to her, he thinks with a small laugh.

“Where are we going? This is not the way to the warehouse” They hadn’t really been paying attention to the woman in the back, but the panic laced tone of Teresa’s voice brings her to attention.

“It’s cool, calm down. Camila just wants to meet with you” Kat soothes but the panic doesn’t leave Teresa’s body.

A meeting with Camila could go one of two ways. All three of them knew that.

Kat’s ready to go home as soon as they get to the club, Camila’s made it clear that she wants to meet with Teresa alone. It’s been another one of those sixteen hour days and all she wants to do is smoke a blunt or two with her roommate/best friend, Leo, and eat her weight in Halo Top ice cream.

Is that too much for a girl to ask?

She’s long taken off her heels and holds them in one hand as she trudges barefoot to her car, avoiding any cracks or suspicious looking shit on the side walk.

She couldn’t take the pinching of her toes any longer and would gladly risk it.

When she gets to the parking lot she sees James talking with a few of the guys, he’s lazily sucking on a cigarette as usual. When he notices her, small and shoeless, he can’t help but grin and excise himself and go up to her.

“You look like you had a rough one, Portokalos” He teases her and she rolls her eyes and tells him to go fuck himself. She’s too exhausted to play their little game tonight.

She unlocks the doors with the clicker on her keys as they approach her Range, not paying attention to the ground below her.

“Hey, be careful” James grabs her, for the second time that day, by her elbow and jerks her towards him.

“What? Jesus, James. You’re going to dislocate my arm one day doing that”

“Sorry, princess. You were about to step in that glass. You should put your shoes back on”

What is with his and Camila’s constant need to parent her? She thinks if she were taller they might treat her, her age.

He opens the driver’s door for her and watches her climb into the SUV. She really is fucking tiny; without those heels that she always has on she just barley reaches his shoulder. It’s almost like watching a child climb in, her short legs working harder than his own long ones would have to as she adjusts herself in the seat.

“What?” She asks, because he’s just staring at her. Like a creeper.

“Nothing. Drive safe, okay”

He goes to shut the door but she stops him, her hand on the glass of the window. He looks at her, confused. Maybe even impatient.

“Thanks. For the coconut water”

With a shake of his head, and a ‘Don’t worry about it’ he’s off and Kat bites her lip as she watches his retreating form.

**_I want this romantic relationship with Kat and James to kind of already be indicated as we go on with this story. They’ve worked with each other for a year or so, so these feelings that they have, have been festering for a while. So don’t get all weirded out if their attraction plays out kind of fast! Hope you enjoyed this chapter!_ **


	5. Summertime Sadness

**_Any reviews are sooooo welcomed and encouraged. You guys don’t even know how motivated I get when I see that you’re liking the story. And please feel free to ask any questions, or even make any comments about the show. I love interacting with you and talking about this amazing(yet unfairly small) fandom!_ **

“Come on! Only 93 more and then we’re done”

Kat’s covered in a thick sheen of sweat and misery and it all but pains her to say those words. The Texan sun rays are already blaring, and it’s not even seven o’clock yet.

‘Get there early and it won’t be as hot’ she’d reasoned to herself.  Fucking HAH.

Her, and her supposed to be motivational work out buddy, Leo, are at a rundown set of bleachers at an equally rundown baseball field that’s a ten minute drive from her house.

Perfect for cardio, unfortunate for the man who’s currently kneeled over, holding his knees and trying not to die.

“Bitch, are you insane? I can’t” He pants, unable to catch his breath “I aint doing no more stairs”

“Okay, you’re the one who wanted to eat at L&L like nine hundred times last week” She argues even though she’d been more than willing to feast on the Hawaiian barbeque with him. 

There were a lot of things that Kat had absolutely no control over in her life- so things like her social life. Her appearance. Her health- she seized. Held on to them like a life line. One of her string of therapists had once told her she had an issue with control, so she guessed that was her way of compensating.

It’s funny; if you’re not a size two then society suddenly deems you a grease ball couch potato. At a full size sixteen, Kat was the healthiest she’d really ever been. Body wise- at least.  She didn’t even want to think about her mental health. She paid shrinks to do that for her.

It was currently her twig of a roommate who she was having to drag through their last round, and the lanky man was having none of it.

“I’m gonna’ go into cardiac arrest if I do anymore. No kidding- bam. My hearts just going to stop and you’re going to have to explain to my mother why I died in spandex”

Leo’s flair for the dramatic had been consistent since she’d met him- which is why she doesn’t even bat an eyelash at that statement.

“Fine- I’m going to keep going though” She rolls an eye at him and then puts her sticks her other headphone back into her ear, starting off without him.

“I’m going to go wait in the car! Where are your key- op, got em. Let’s go get McGriddles or something after this? I’m starving”

She turns up the volume on her phone to block him out as she takes the stairs at an even pace. Yeah, she has gym equipment at home- but she doesn’t sweat like this within the confines of the large house she’d bought nearly a year ago.  And right now she felt like she needed to sweat- purge.

A year. Fuck. Had it really been that long? Since she’d moved to Texas to help Camila run business, on her grandfathers’ request? Time was starting to blur. One big bloody messy blur.

She can still hear the gunshot from yesterday ring in her ears. Still see the puddle of blood and brain matter that pooled out of Lucien’s head when Lopez’ had shot him.

Movies don’t show that; the carnage left by even the smallest bullet holes.

She used to have it on replay in her head. All of the gore and the savageness she’d bore witness to would just carousel in her mind, but eventually you learn to cope. You know the way your eyes adjust to darkness after a while?

That’s what she’d done.

There we’re more pressing matters to think of anyway. Like Teresa. The woman fascinated her, she couldn’t deny it. Kat had seen a few caged people, people who were in situations they had no control over and all of said people always behaved the same. Like animals. Clawing and chewing and howling.

But not Teresa. Teresa’s mind seemed to work clearer under the harsh weight of pressure; the confines of chains didn’t seem to cloud her judgment.

And that was a very dangerous asset.

The girl was dangerous. Kat had come to that conclusion after she’d watched Teresa shove those coke pellets down her throat the day she’d met her. She’d also come to the conclusion that she wanted her on her side.

Even if Camila hadn’t “ordered” that Kat befriend Teresa- Kat would have been smart enough to know she wanted the girl. Wanted what she knew. Wanted to know it before Camila knew it. Because she did trust the older woman,  she kind of even idolized her…but she also knew her.

And Camila was a hundred times more dangerous than Teresa could ever hope to be.

This whole thing with Epifanio wasn’t making it any better either; and if whatever Teresa had on him could even neutralize the bomb that was their marriage a little bit or even better, make Kat able to be on top of the situation…she wanted it.

And there weren’t many things Kat didn’t get once she decided she wanted them.

The warehouse had this weird sorority house vibe to it in the mornings- all of the girls were getting ready. Primping and priming- it was almost normal.

Well, Kat guessed, it would be normal if they weren’t all drug mules and prostitutes.

She makes her way through the already bustling storage building with a big bag in her hands and a look of determination on her face.

…It doesn’t go unnoticed by James, who spots her from his place at the “loading  station” across the lot. The glint in her green eyes and that quirk of her painted cherry red lips- she has something up her sleeve.

And she said _he_ had to work on _his_ poker face. Hah, he could spot when she was up to something from a mile away.

That- and the black and white striped dress she was in did wonders for her ass.

He wasn’t the only one who’d noticed; Zeferino was staring, unabashed at the jiggle of her thighs. It makes James roll his eyes hard and clap a hand to the mans jean jacket clad shoulder.

“You doing your job? Or staring at your bosses ass?”

“A little bit of both, man” Zeferino laughs in return “How do you ignore an ass like that?”

He doesn’t, is the truthful answer, but he keeps that fact to himself and tells Zeferino instead to focous on his work make sure the product is being dibbied out equally.

Kat sits on the small metal stool beside Teresa’s bed with the warm bag on her lap. When Teresa goes to come back from the bathroom, totally unexpecting the sight of the girl shocks her a little bit- makes her do a double take.

“Hey…” Teresa doesn’t really know what to say. The piercing looks from the other girls in the room aren’t really helping either.

“Hey, good morning” Kat ushers for her to sit down.

“Morning” Teresa murmurs when she’s sitting and they’re face to face, and Kat starts to open the bag she’s come with.

“So I know Camila thanked you for yesterday already” With a Rollex. Kat had scoffed a little at that. What in the fuck was Teresa going to do with a watch where she was now? “And I’m aware it’s not a Rollex- but this is me saying thank you”

Kat pulls a white- to go- box out of the bag and hands it to Teresa who takes it and looks down at it for a moment before opening it.

Teresa salivates. Literally, her mouth starts to water and without her even saying a word Kat silently grins. Triumphant.

In the box is a large chorizo and egg stuffed breakfast burrito that’s completely smothered in green chilli from Bubba’s. Enough to win the heart of any man- or woman.

“I know it’s obviously not a fifty thousand dollar meal but I’d take payment in Bubba Cooks green chilli any day. It’s magical” Kat teases and Teresa looks up and gives her a smile.

She’s still not sure how she feels about her…but she’ll happily take the burrito. She’d been living on bologna sandwiches for the last few days and it tasted almost like gold.

“Mmm”

Kat laughs at Teresa’s physical response to the bite of food.

“Better than orgasms, right?” Kat’s only half joking “Well- I’m not going to creep on you while you eat” The shorter woman stands up, patting down her skirt as she goes.

“Thank you” Teresa tells her before she walks away and Kat just nods with a small grin before she’s walking away. Teresa can’t see the way the smile slips off her face as the moment Kat’s face is turned in the opposite direction, a look of near smugness replacing it.

James can though.

“You know you become more and more like her everyday” He comments to her as she’s waiting for one of Camila’s cars to pick her up and take her to the dealership and Kat just slides her sunglasses on and laughs.

Bell like and chiming. Harsh and sweet at the same time.

“Good morning to you too. Is that supposed to be a compliment or an insult?”

“It’s supposed to be a warning”

But Kat’s in too good of a mood for even his ever present sour aura to darken hers.

“Thanks, dad. I’ll keep that in mind” The SUV is pulling up but that’s okay, she’s already done with this conversation anyways.

“Kat-“

“You have a blessed day, James. Chow”  She climbs into the vehicle, and slams the door in his face before he has a chance to say anything back.

The driver doesn’t drive away automatically though.

“Well hurry- Isn’t Camila waiting for us?” She urges and the man apologizes before they peel off. Leaving an irate James in the parking lot of the warehouse.

Star Motor’s showroom is huge, and brimming with sleek and dazzling new cars of all makes.

It’s the kind of place, that had you told her a few years ago she’d be used to frequenting, she’d never believe you.

Full of men in suits looking to compensate for what they lacked in other areas of life and salesman just dying to help you empty your wallets; the dealership was a hub for the rich and elite.

Camila looks at home there in her elegant black blazer and patterned wine pencil dress that had a slit in the side that showed off just enough leg to be sexy- and not boring.

_‘There’s a fine line between classy and boring’_

“So what are we doing here? Didn’t you just get a new car last month?” Kat implores as she stands next to Camila whose hungrily eyeing the cars in the room.

Camila hadn’t told her what they were doing at the dealership before noon. No, she had just gotten a text that said –I’m sending a car, I’ll meet you here-

Maybe it was a car for Isabella?

Jeeze; Kat laments in her mind. That lucky little bitch is only fourteen.

“We’re here to do some business promotion” Camila reveals and Kat’s confused, but before she can question any further a salesman in a sharp looking navy blue suit approaches them.

“Camila, it’s so good to see you” He greets.

That’s when you know you’re rich. When employees at dealerships like this know you by name.

“Jerry” Camila smiles shaking his hand warmly. “This is a college of mine, Kat” she introduces Kat who mimics her warmth.

“Let me get you both espresso’s” He has that salesman ‘I’m your friend  so spend all of your money with me smile on his face “We have your favorite, Kopi Luwak, straight from Sumatra. Nobody else in Dallas can get it”

Kat physically has to stop herself from rolling her eyes.

“Oh, no. I’m not here for the coffee” Camila dismisses.

“Is something wrong with the car?” Jerry’s worried; it had only been a month since the woman had been there. Getting a bad rep from a woman like Camila was BAD for business.

“Nothing like that, it runs like a dream. As a matter of fact, I like it so much, I’m going to my four more”

Both Kat and Jerry’s eyebrows shoot up into their hairlines.

“T-hank you. Thank you very much” Jerry grovels joyously.

“I want them delivered to Mexico” Camila instructs- and Kat’s starting to piece together the puzzle.

“Not a problem at all. Shipped to your place in Sinoloa?”

“No they’re not mine. They’re gifts”

Kat bites a grin. Ah, gifts. She has an idea of who’ll receive these so called gifts.

Buying loyalty was so much easier than earning it.

“That’s very gracious. Fully loaded? All the bells and whistles? There’s a service we’ve been offering to our select customers” And even though Kat knows Jerry’s only doing his job she gives him a small glare before walking off as he tries to do the salesman pitch thing to Camila.

The woman’s about to drop insane money in this place- and he’s still pushing?

Greedy.

Greedy…

Kat can’t help but feel a little greedy in the store as she walks through isles of luxury cars, letting Camila talk prices privately.

The new Audi’s are gorgeous- that chrome one would look so nice next to her rover in her drive way…

She snaps a photo of it and sends it to Leo with the caption of “I’m feeling naughty- should I bite?”

“It’s nice, but emerald green would suit you so much better” Camila tantalizes into Kat’s ear from behind her back.

“I don’t need it” She reasons and Camila’s chortle is smooth as chocolate.

“You want it though, don’t you? Then take it”

It takes all of Kat’s will power not to walk out of that dealership with that car.

They’re walking through the money counting room, full of girls stripped down to their bras and panties in order to control theft, on the way to Camila’s office, when Kat’s phone beeps. She expects it to be Leo or something.

It’s not. It’s her grandfather.

Fuck, it still feels so…wrong to call him that. She felt like she should be calling him Reynaldo like everyone else, and yet he insisted on grandfather.

She’s just about to force herself to enter when Camila raises her own ringing phone to her ear.

It’s Cesar.

Kat frowns deep. Cesar had always given her the fucking creeps. It was just the way the man held himself…she hated being forced to be around him.

She figures she’ll call her grandfather, Reynaldo, back later. Give him some bull shit excuses that didn’t sound like “Hey I don’t ever know what to say to you since you’ve been absent my whole life until like three years ago but thanks for that shipment of coke last month. Love ya”

Her whole face is all screwed up when James walks into the office.

They meet eyes, briefly, and then hers dart away quickly.

There’s no time for things to be awkward though. Maybe it’s lucky that there’s never time for anything in this lifestyle, because it means she never really has to dwell on anything.

There’s always a crisis. Always bullets flying.

When James answers his ringing phone, Kat can tell somethings wrong. Not only by the tone of his voice, but by the way his shoulders tense up.

“What’s wrong?

What happened?

What’s the damage?”

Kat perks up, alert as James pointedly looks at Camila who’s still on the phone with Cesar.

She can obviously tell something’s gone wrong because she take’s the phone away from her ear, demanding to know what’s happening.

“Yeah I’m on my way” James tells whoever is on the other side of that line and then he starts for the door. “We’ve got a problem”

Fucking a.

Kat stands quickly to chase after him, and Camila tells Cesar in Spanish that they’d have to finish their conversation later, before hanging up and following the two’s suit.

They don’t even notice the parked Chrysler across the street as they pile into the black SUV’s. Cesar watches them all with peeled eyes from behind the tinted windows.

Walking into Sandys, it don’s onto Kat that the woman has a six year old. She remembers him, running around playing during a meeting once…

Her stomach stirs uncomfortably as she takes in the gruesome scene in front of her. Two men lay on the kitchen floor, bleeding out heavily. They both look dead.

Sandra looks okay though, a little stirred up as she leans against a counter. But she’d be more than stirred up had anything happened to her child. That comforts Kat, at least a little.

She steps over the blood stained linoleum, not wanting to stain her shoes.

Teresa comes in from the back door, and after a once over, Kat can see she’s not hurt.  No bleeding or brusing.

“This one alive, Sandy?” James leers as he glares down at one of the men on the floor.

“He was a minute ago”

The swift, yet forceful kick James lands to the man’s face makes Teresa jump and Kat cross her arms over her chest tightly.

“Yeah, still alive”

Camila enters the scene slowly, taking in everything around her.

“Are you hurt?” She questions Teresa when her eyes get to the girl.

Teresa just nods.

Camila moves on then, bending down to the barely alive man so that he could clearly see her face.

“Who gave you the confidence to do this?”

He can barely breathe, much less talk, but he manages to cough out a no one.

“You’re bleeding so bad, you cannot even lie properly” Camila’s tone is only midly taunting “Is it Eric from the Jimenez cartel? The bird man, was it him?

Kat and James glance at each other, weightedly. Knowing fully well what would go down if Eric had had the balls to make a move like this.

The man just coughs another bloody cough in response and Camila stands back straight.

“It’s okay; we’ll get that sorted out”

James knows what sorted out means. He knows it won’t be clean or easy to watch; so he goes to the counter and grabs Teresa’s satchel full of coke.

“You got another drop off” He shoves the bag in her direction.

Because everyone in this room had seen torture. Everyone but her.

“I think she’s been through enough today, James. Have another girl make the delivery” Kat interjects.

“Kat’s right, send someone else” Camila agrees “You go back to the club now. And Sandra- turn on the stove”

Kat watches Teresa take one final look at the man before she exits the house.

She’s lucky, Kat thinks as she opens one of Sandy’s kitchen drawers, her fingers wrapping around a metal spatula. She lifts it to her face and turns it in her hand, inspecting it, before deciding it would do.

She feels that blurring- that numbness once more.

It’s the burying of the bodies that she wishes she can skip. It’s a long drive out into the middle of nowhere to find a dump site has her legs fall asleep during the ride.

It’s too bright, too much light exposure as they stand in the desert; waiting for Camila to deem this place suitable.

Kat’s cranky; she stands arms folded with a cold, bored look on her face.

She wanted to be back in air conditioned civilization.

At least she wouldn’t have to dig the graves, she thinks on the bright side.

Yet another phone call seems to shake the atmosphere, pierce the calming of her nerves.

“I’m busy” Camila barks into her phone-whatever she’s told sends the woman hurrying back into one of the SUV’s, Kat in tow, commanding James to get them back to the club.

“What’s going on now?”

“Teresa’s been taken” Camila’s answer makes her lean backwards against the leather back seat hard.

Drama. That girl was pure fucking drama.

Watching the security camera is like watching some B-lister movie and Kat’s disgusted as she watches Cesar bust Teresa’s window, taze her or something- Kat had never seen a weapon like that, and then sling the unconscious woman over his shoulder and throw her into his car.

“He’s so fucking creepy” She can’t help but vocalize.

Who even wears leather trench coats? Scary fuck.

“I’ll find her” James decides, pretty much vows.

“You don’t need to. I know where she’ll be. He’s taking her to Culiacan, to my husband” Camils calm. Cool and collected, she’s filing her nails for fucks sake.

“There’s only one highway to get back to Mexico, right?” Kat declares and Camila just nods.

“Right” James assures.

It’s hours later, but Teresa is returned in one piece. She’s tired and beat up as she sits in Camila’s office, James is sat across from her. Puffing on a cigarette, his jacked laying on the seat behind him.

“You know, I’ve seen a lot of girls in my life that were trouble. And you…are trouble” He starts in on Teresa who just gives him a blank, yet defiant look.

It’s in that moment Kat comes walking into the office and James could almost laugh at a higher power that would send her entering when he was talking about trouble.

She has a drink in her hand, an triple shot mojito, that she seems to be gulping down as she plops into the seat next to James.

“Did you see what he hit you with?” James wonders and Teresa shakes her head. She hadn’t seen it, but hell, had she felt it. She could still feel it. “Gotta get me one of those.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you, you psychopath?” Kat hisses at him as she takes the last drink of alcohol from her cup.

Yeah, she’d tortured a guy with a red hot spatula today. But she didn’t advertise that shit.

James ignores her and continues on.

“You know you were lucky today. If Camila didn’t have a couple of state troopers on her payroll…”

“What is she going to do with batman?”

 _Kill him, I hope_ Kat thinks to herself. The world would be a whole lot better without him in it.

“That’s between them. Between us, I’ve got a plan for a future. And it doesn’t include getting killed by crossfire meant for you. Don’t expect to get lucky again” Kat shoots daggers at James through his whole little speech and scoffs when he’s done.

“Huge plans, I’m sure” She bites as she stands and goes retrieve Camila’s personal stash. She’s not really a fan of scotch, but she takes a shot anyways. Intent on not being sober for a minute longer. “I mean it’s not like you haven’t made a career out of being shot at, right? You should keep on building that future of yours up in your head- cause that’s the only place it’s ever going to exist”

Both James and Teresa’s eyes are glued to the girl who’s cackling as she shakes her head.

“Don’t you get it? We don’t have futures James. Duh” She sounds so young. So dark. She takes another shot- holding the bottle out in offering to Teresa who declines.

“Where can I get ice?” The curly headed woman wonders. She doesn’t really want ice- she wants out of the room. She can feel the tension becoming thicker and thicker between the two and she doesn’t want to be around when it bubbles over.

“There’s an ice machine down the hall” Kat instructs, before downing another shot.

It’s only when Teresa’s left the room that James snaps.

“What the fuck is wrong with you? What do you mean we don’t have futures?”

“You know exactly what I mean. We’re going to end up in prison for the rest of our fucking lives or dead. Personally, I hope I go the death route. Orange isn’t really my color” Kat shrugs, as though she’s talking about the weather, or politics and James is a little shocked for a second.

He doesn’t know how to play this. What to say to her.

“That’s not true…you can climb your way out of this”

She laughs at him. Hard.

That cruel beautiful sound.

“I’m not Kim, James. I know better than that shit” She brushes him off, before sitting back down next to him and offering him the bottle.

He takes it, and takes a shot.

Because she’s right. He can placate Kim with pretty words, but not her.

She’d tortured a man to death with him today.

There was nothing he could say that she couldn’t counter.

So he decides to drink with her instead.

Ten minutes later- Kat’s  laying on the sofa, her head resting on the arm.

“You know for how expensive these couches were they’re uncomfortable as shit” She decides and Teresa’s amused for a moment as she stares out of the windows that show the crowds of people dancing at the bar beneath them

Then Camila walks in.

“You can go now” She dismisses as she goes to her desk.

“You saved my life…thank you. Why?”

Couldn’t she just be grateful?

“I have my reasons” Camila sounds final and Teresa knows she wont get an answer past that “Go get some rest”

“I still think it’s a mistake” James accuses when Teresa’s out of the room for good “We should have given her back to Epifanio in the first place”

 And Kat chuckles without opening her eyes from her place on the couch. Camila’s more discreet, but she laughs too.

Oh, James.

“Not all cards are meant to be played at once. She has a purpose. Her time will come”

“And Batman? I mean do you really think you can trust him?” Even though James hadn’t vocally agreed with Kat earlier- doesn’t mean he didn’t agree. Batman is creepy. And slimy. And Brutal.

He walks up close to Camila, trying to make her take him seriously.

“I don’t know, but I’ll be ready if it turns out I can’t” She reassures as she goes around him on her way to the door “make sure she gets home safetly”

“I’m twenty four you know. I can get myself home safely!” Kat calls after Camila who’s already left the office.

“I’m not even that drunk” She defends herself as she sits up. She’s really not. A couple drinks and some shots were far from what it took to get her drunk. “I’m just tired”

“I’ll still drive you home”

“No, it’s alright. I can call an uber”

“Not happening, let’s go”

“James-“

“Katrina, I’m going to take you home. Okay?” He’s cemented. There’s no wiggle room.

She exhales in a puff.

“Fine. But you can’t drive all crazy, deal?”

She holds out her hand and he envelopes it in his much bigger one, shaking it before helping pull her up and off the couch.

“Deal”

**_Kat’s a bit of a brat, isn’t she? Well you have to consider what you’d be in this world too. It’s a lot for a twenty something year old woman to take it, and she didn’t grow up in it so she’s not accustomed to it. I think it would be extremely Mary Sue-ish if she could just handle all of this death and blood and stress without having that bitchy coping mechanism of hers. So hate her if you will, but she’s the most realistic character I could hope to write for this universe. I know her and James have kind of a hate- hate relationship right now but she is a Gemini and he is(I’m going based off of Peter Gadiot’s own sun sign) a Capricorn guys! I think we can all agree they both care for each other in their own weird way though right? Right._ **


	6. Art Deco

Seething.

That’s what Kat is currently doing. Her fingers are in a white knuckle grip around the steering wheel of her car and she can hear her pulse in her ears.  Her pump clad foot is pressed down on the gas pedal far too firmly as she speeds down the 820.

That shady, controlling motherfucker.

How dare he? Try to manipulate a situation to belittle her?

Even thinking back on the conversation that had occurred back at the warehouse had her itching for a valium.

_It had all started with a little conversation. A conversation about the “Bird Man”_

_James and the Charger were in a heated discussion, their lips moving fast- talks of Camila going dry and how they were going to keep the customers from buying elsewhere tensing both of the men. She could tell they we’re nervous, the unsteady ground they all we’re walking on had the men grasping for dry land._

_Kat had always enjoyed the beach._

_She didn’t mind shifting sands- as long as she could get a nice tan in the process._

_“He’s having a party Friday night” Kat had divulged as she picked at her nails from where she was perched on one of the cabinets and James’ head had snapped hard in her direction._

_“How do you know that?” He inquired firmly, his dark eyebrows shooting up a little._

_“Leo got invited by a friend of a friend- you know his uncles are in with the Jimenez’s”_

_James had seemed to digest that; she could see the cogs turning in his head as he silently planned. The tension, the jagged way he had been holding his shoulders for the past hour seemed to dissipate and his back relaxed._

_James could always function better when there was a plan- when he wasn’t flat on his back with his ass hanging out._

_“Is it going to be at his house?”_

_“Yes, I think so. He hasn’t given out the address yet but Leo said him throwing the party so I’m assuming”_

_That’s fine, James thought. He’s known where Eric- “The Bird Man” had lived for a couple months now. He’d been sitting on it; waiting for Camila to give him the okay to handle the man._

_“This is good, we can work with this” James nodded “I need you ask Leo when the party starts ”_

_“When he knows I’ll be sure to tell you. What are you thinking?” Kat wondered about that plan she’d seen forming in his eyes._

_“I’m thinking it’s time that we got on top of this situation and now we have an in”_

_“Okay…I wasn’t really planning on going with Leo-“He had interrupted her sharply._

_“No, not you” the authoritive tone in his voice made her wince “We’ll get someone else in. You’re too known, it’s too dangerous”_

_“But I was invited” She had persisted- not yet annoyed. More confused to why he wouldn’t just send her in. It would be the easiest way for them to go._

_“No, Leo was invited” He shut her down before turning to The Charger to ask him if he still had that ‘frequency device’ they bought from Pablo._

_Kat doesn’t take being shut up- or the attempt of it- too kindly._

_“And Leo invited me. Plus I’ve partied with Eric before; it would really be the easiest route for me to just go and get whatever you have planned done”_

_It’s so simple. Why is he being such a dick?_

_“That was before all the tension with Camila and he knows you’re affiliated with her. Do you see the connection, the problem, there?”_

_Okay-then she was annoyed. He was speaking to her as though she was stupid, or at least that’s the way she was taking it._

_“Yes I see the connection there, James. Don’t patronize me-“_

_“I’m not trying to pat-“_

_“Yes you are. Camila isn’t the only name I’m affiliated with. Everyone buys their coke from the same people: Columbia. Even he isn’t stupid enough to do anything to me. And the Vargas’ and the Jimenez cartels have a treaty on top of that. Which is why you haven’t blown his brains out even though you obviously know where the guy lives” Kat ranted._

_“How do you know I know where he lives?”_

_Kat could have screamed. Out of her whole little speech- that was all he seemed to retain._

_“You told me to tell you when the party is. Not **where”**_

_James looked at her, really looked at her for a minute. She could be so intuitive it’s scary sometimes._

_“I’ll be fine”_

_“You don’t know that” James had interjected again and she was really getting sick of him interrupting her “One day your last name isn’t going to be able to save you”_

_He was just telling her the truth. Harshly. But honestly. She leans on the fact that her paternal families all but untouchable too much- she lets it cloud her head and engorge her ego and it’s going to get her killed._

_She had felt her face heat up at his words._

_“That’s not my last name, James, and I’m fully fucking aware that the world we live in is dangerous. I’m also fully aware that I don’t need to run things by you before I do them. This is fucking stupid and you know it”_

_James jaw clenched as Kats hands fisted around the edge of the counter she had still been sitting on._

_The Charger looked between them uneasily. It wasn’t as though he wasn’t used to the two of them being at odds- it was just that it usually just stuck to bickering. And their spat was on the verge of becoming a full out fight._

_“You see- that. That fucking stubbornness is what puts you and everyone around you in danger!” James was still trying to keep his cool but she’s testing it._

_That hurts a little and Kat’s offense had mixed with her anger._

_“Excuse me? How dare you! How many times have I bailed us out of problems? Have I sucked it up and called in reinforcements when we would have been screwed otherwise?” She had been so offended. James knew. At least partially, how uncomfortable she was with her paternal family and the fact that she had to ask them for help and he’d thrown them in her face._

_“You guys I think we should just settle down. We’ll talk to Donna Camila and figure out the best way to plan this, okay?” The Charger stepped in then, trying to diffuse._

_“Yeah we can do that. But there’s really no need” Her green eyes looked more feline then usual as she talks “I’m going on Friday”_

_“We’ll see what Camila has to say about that. Because right now I’m pretty damn positive she’s going to agree with me. We don’t need to be taking unnecessary risks” James retaliated and she gritted her teeth so hard it had almost hurt._

_“And what if I don’t fucking care what she says, huh?” Kat only half meant that, but he had her so wound up she couldn’t control what daggers flew from her mouth._

_“She’s your boss”_

_She wanted to hit him. Right in that angular jaw of his. She shook her head and barked out a single laugh instead._

_He’s such a fucking hypocrite. And if there was one thing Kat couldn’t stand, it was a hypocrite._

_“That’s **really** nice coming from you, James. Yeah, she is my boss. But what you seem to forget is I’m yours” and with that she had grabbed her bag from beside her and hopped off the counter, storming past them and towards the door. _

_James should have let her go, he really should have. Even The Charger called for him as he goes after her._

_“Just let her cool off, man!”_

_He didn’t mean for it to continue on as a fight as he follows her through the warehouse, out of the warehouse, but somehow it did._

_“What are you not getting about you going would put you in massive amounts of danger? I really don’t get why you’re fighting me right now”_

_She spun on her heel._

_“I’m fighting you because you seem to think it’s okay to embarrass me in front of other people”_

_What? When had he done that? He opened his mouth to say he’d never but she spoke first._

_“Throwing my grandpa in my face like I use him to go off on ego trips all the time? Are you serious? And then trying to sit there and threaten me with Camila? How. Dare. You. James” She hissed up at him “How fucking dare you when you constantly bitch and moan about her and play the whole I hate mind games and superiority bullshit act and then you use on me the moment you get the chance”_

_Her pride is hurt. He could see that._

_And he felt bad, he really did. But not bad enough to give her the okay to go to a party that she could get killed at._

_“That wasn’t what I was trying to do, Kat” She had shaken her head and backs away from him, not wanting to hear it “But you’re Camila’s direct link to Columbia. Everyone knows that. And maybe they wouldn’t hurt you but they could take you. Do you really think she’d let that happen?”_

_“I’m so sick of this. I’m so sick of everyone treating me like I’m an idiot. Like I’m a tool” She said it with her hands over her face in frustration._

_He made the mistake of reaching out to her, to place his big palm on her shoulder._

_She shrugged it off violently the moment she felt it._

_“Go tattle on me to Camila if you want to. Whatever. I don’t even care anymore” And then she’d walked away. He didn’t follow her again._

* * *

 

Kat somehow manages to get her drive herself home and when she’s entering the code unlock the fence to her driveway she wonders how she didn’t get in a crash on the way.

She’d read a study once about phantom driving once. Your brain’s so hardwired to habits it just does them for you naturally.

She thinks about that all the way until she enters her house, walking up the stone steps and into the large living room.

“Hey hooker, I’m making lunch” Leo sing songs when she walks in.

She kicks off her heels behind her and throws her black blazer onto one of the ivory couches as she makes her way across the hardwood floors and into the kitchen.

He only has to take on look at her face.

“What’s wrong?” He turns away from the pan full of stir fry on the stove and Kat just shakes her head and goes for the fridge.

“I just got into it really bad with James” is all she says as she grabs a water bottle from the fridge door and then shuts it.

“Is that all? You came in here looking like someone killed your cat. You had me all worried” Leo twangs in his thick Texas accent. “You fight with that guy, like, every day. I’m pretty sure it’s your way of coping with how much you want to fuck his brains out”

“This time was different” Kat insists around a large gulp of water “I’d never fuck someone as condescending and- and sexist as him!”

“How was he sexist? Uh-uh you know I don’t play that shit I’ll whoop his ass”  She grins a little at that. Leo was the only man she needed in her life.

“Okay maybe he wasn’t sexist-exactly- but he was so patronizing and rude and-“ Kats gripping thin air as she talks, and Leo worries she might bust a blood vessel or something.

“Okay, here- we’re going to get day drunk and you’re going to chill out okay?”  Leo soothes as he reaches up into the wine rack and pulls down a bottle.

And Kat can think of nothing better.

A bottle of white wine later they’re both sprawled out on the couch, her head on a pillow in his lap as the watch some day time talk show and she complains about her life.

“I’m just so sick of it, you know? I feel like I’m being totally controlled all the time and I hate it”

“I told you to be careful about getting into bed with Camila, remember? That woman’s a fucking shark. She’s worse than her husband and he’s literally a politician now”

Leo had warned her last year, before she’d made the move to Texas , to watch out for her new ‘boss’. Told her the stories his uncles had told him.

Leo came from a long line of Narcos. Not super high ranking ones, but cartel members still. His father had managed to all but get out but his uncles we’re still deeply in bedded with the Jimenez cartel.

“I know, but she’s not all bad- She’s not! She can be a really decent person sometimes. Most of the time, actually. It just gets to me the way that everyone parents me all the time” Kat sounds whiny. She knows she does.

“Are they parenting you or do they just give a shit about you? Because you tend to get the two confused” Kat scoffs. “I’m totally serious, Kat. Yeah James was hella out of line with the way he came at you today but I know you, and I know you know deep down at the core of that situation he was trying to keep you safe”

Sometimes Kat hates Leo. The guy was all dramatics when she needed him serious- and serious when she needed him to be dramatic with her.

“He basically called me a spoiled brat. He told me that I couldn’t hide behind my last name and my last name is Portokalos! I don’t even have my dad’s last name! I’m not hiding behind shit!” She argues.

“No, I think that was totally wrong of him but come on. He was pretty much saying ‘don’t go to that party and get yourself killed, we haven’t had anal yet”

Kat laughs so hard she snorts. Even though she knows it’s not true.

Leo has this theory that she and James are soul mates. He’d told her plenty of times before that if she didn’t hop on that fine piece of ex-military ass; that he would.

“He’s so controlling it makes me nauseous. I feel bad for his girlfriend” Kat spits. Her “soul mate” couldn’t be a control freak. She was a control freak herself. There couldn’t be two control freaks in a relationship.

Someone had to bend.

And Kat had never been very flexible.

“I don’t. He’s one gorgeous motherfucker. That woman is _blessed_ to go to sleep next to him every night”

“Whose side are you even on?”

“Yours of course” He says it like it’s the most obvious thing in the world and it makes her feel warm and fuzzy in her chest. It might be the wine- but she’s sure it’s the loyalty.

“So you don’t think I should go to the party, then?”

“Fuck no I didn’t say that” Leo exasperates “I think you should definitely go to the party with me. They don’t own you and they need to know that. I just think you should forgive James because he’s one day going to father you children” 

Kat sighs long and deep through her nose. Fucking Leo.

**_This is totally and completely a filler chapter to set things up for the next chapter. Plus I needed to give you guys some more Leo. He’s my second OC for this story and you guys I love him. So much. I imagine him a mix of Manny MUA and Ezra Miller. He’s a blessing and I’m going to be writing more of him._ **

**_I also need him to call Kat on her shit because she can be so prideful cant she? That deadly sin gets her into trouble and she needs to realize it. Alright guys I’m already writing the next chapter. I think I’ll upload these together. Yes? Yeah._ **


	7. Off to the Races

Being woken up with the declaration of “I’m going to kill somebody” would make anyone antsy and as Teresa sits in the passenger seat of James’ car of the day she can’t help but feel terribly on edge.

“Who are you going to kill?” She questions again, staring at him; waiting for an answer “If you’re going to do that I should know what’s going on”

“You’ll find out what you need to know” Is his stoic response and Teresa leans back into her seat hard, unsatisfied.

“Where’s Kat? Why didn’t she come today?” Teresa very rarely saw James without the girl. Kat had been around last time, why wasn’t she here this time.

Teresa also had the feeling that Kat would tell her what was going on. The girl was bratty- sharp and playful, but not cruel. Or annoyingly brooding like James.

James ponders that question. He didn’t know where Kat was honestly. He hadn’t seen her since Wednesday- she’d stayed away from the warehouse and when he was at the club she avoided him.

He swallows that and tells Teresa “She had work to do with Camila today”

He’s glad for Teresa’s silence as he makes his way down the familiar roads to their destination.

“Listen to me, I’m not doing this” Teresa insists as soon as the engine stops and he just rolls his eyes behind his sunglasses and gets out of the car, shutting the door in her face and starting to walk across the street. Twoardes the town houses on the other side.

“Hey!” She demands, as she follows suit, catching up to him and grabbing him by the back of his jacked “I’m not killing anyone”

He takes a deep breath in through his nose. “I said _I’m._ I’m killing someone. Not you, and not here…” He looks up, towards his floor. A little surge of dread rushes him. “Although in this house there’s someone I’d like to kill sometimes.”

He goes forward and she has no choice but to follow him.

Teresa stays a little behind him as he walks up the stairs. Keeps her distance- still unsure of what she was walking into.

She’s shocked to say the least at the words that come out of his mouth.

“Hey babe”

James bends over the back of the couch to kiss the pretty red head that’s sitting there, watching the shopping channel.

He has a girl? Teresa wouldn’t have guessed.

He doesn’t seem to interact with women very well,

The red head’s happy he’s home, she tells him so.

“I’m not home, not really. I just need one of your dresses” James informs her as he reaches over her to grab a couple grapes from the bowl on the table.

He’s starving. As usual he hadn’t had the time to eat lunch.

“A dress?” Kim laughs, he has to be joking. She still hasn’t noticed Teresa standing close to the stairs so James tells her to turn around.

“Kim, Teresa. Teresa, Kim” That’s all the introductions he gives.

“Hi” Kim greets as she goes up to Teresa. Kim seems nice. Her accent makes every word she says sound sweet. “What do you need a dress for?”

“Work” James answers for Teresa who’s still confused as fuck to as why she’s in his house with his girlfriend and needs a dress.

“Alright, well, come on” Kim smiles as she turns and starts up the second flight of stairs.

“Make it a high end dress. A nice one” James instructs the redhead. He’d bought her enough- and to get into a Bird Man’s party Teresa was going to have to look the part.

“This way, sweet heart” Kim calls for Teresa. She’s not exactly pleased about being ambushed in the middle of the afternoon and having to give a dress- an expensive one at that- to one of James girls. But she knows his job; she knows she doesn’t have much of a choice.

Teresa follows Kim up to her closet, glaring holes into James the whole way up. That bastard. She’d spent an entire car ride thinking she was about to murder someone and now she was about to play dress up with his burra?

Cabron.

James doesn’t take it to heart. He’d been glared at a lot lately. The eyes we’re usually mint green, but the look was almost spot on.

While Kim’s getting Teresa dressed he goes to the closet, the one the red head knows not to go in, and pulls out a long black case. He opens it and the large sniper rifle inside brings up a sense of…sick nostalgia runs through him.

He was a sniper then and he was a sniper now. He checks it over to make sure all the parts are in place, tunes it like his own little instrument before locking it back up securely.

Kim would lose her shit if she saw it.

He leans against one of his kitchen counters and scrolls through his phone, making sure that everything is on track for the night.

-Is Teresa ready?- There’s a text from Camila.

-She’s getting dressed with Kim right now-

He replies quickly, he knows better than to keep Camila waiting.

-Good. Kat said make sure the dress is a nice one, nothing too… promiscuous. She also says the party starts at 4-

James nostrils flare. Kat could text him herself. Or better yet, Kat could have gotten Teresa ready. They could have gone to her and skipped this whole thing but she was being immature and icing him out.

-Roger that-

What he wants to reply is ‘tell Kat to grow the fuck up’ but he doesn’t.

The image of her yanking herself away from him when he’d tried to apologize is still fresh in his mind, as fresh as it had been two days ago even though he’d replayed it over and over. It bothers him.

“Come on! Are you choosing a dress or sowing one?” He hollers up the stairs.

He’s still bothered when he hears Kim’s phone chime and vibrate from the kitchen table. He can’t help it, it’s deep rooted in his nature for him to know what’s going on around him- or at least that’s what he tells himself as he picks it up and reads the incoming text.

-Kim. Are we going out tonight- The text is from a David. He glares down at the name. The same David that she’d met a few months ago at her friends wedding? The Oil guy? How did he even have her number?

He places the phone back on the table face down, deciding he’d deal with it later as heels clacked down the stairs.

He’s surprised. Teresa can really clean up. The sparkly red dress clings to her and her hair falls around her head in neater curls. Her eyes, which are still pissed, are lined with makeup that make her features stand out.

She’s a beautiful woman. This is what she must have looked like before; when she was girl friend to a drug runner and lived in that big house back in Mexico  that he’d seen pictures of on Camila’s desk.

“Jimmy, don’t make her run in my shoes otherwise you’re gonna’ have to buy me a new pair” Kim teases as she comes to him and he thinks that maybe David could buy her that new pair.

“You going out tonight?” He implores, already knowing the answer.

“With Cara” She shrugs innocently.

“Who else is going to be there?” He goes on, because he wants her to say it. She’s always down his throat about work and yet she’s going out with Cara and this guy tonight? It’s almost laughable.

“You worried about that oil guy, aren’t you?” This is what he hates, and loves, about Kim. This sugary sweetness. She can make everything seem so sweet. “You don’t have to worry”

The kiss he shares with her isn’t sweet as usual and Teresa tries not to watch from a distance. Really does try to mind her own business.

But even she knows he most definitely should worry.

“Come on” He gruffs to her as he grabs his case. He doesn’t like being watched when shit’s intimate and he’s trying not to feel uncomfortable. Teresa follows him, feeling like she had just witnessed something she probably shouldn’t have.

* * *

 

The party is already packed, the big lush green yard in front of ‘The Birdman’s’  bone white modern structured house is littered with people dressed to the nines. Luxury cars of all makes pull into the drive ways.

James and Teresa sit in a parked Lexus. A different car then whet they’d been in when they went to his house earlier. Teresa wonders how many cars the Vargas cartel steals a day.

James’ phone vibrates and he picks it up.

“James, its 5:30, where are you?” Teresa can hear a female voice over the speaker and she wonders if it’s Kat.

“Black car, right out front. You see me? I see you” He then hangs up and Teresa peels her eyes for the caller.

It’s not Kat.

The woman who walks up in a long sleeved. Short, tight smoky gray dress has teased blond hair and is chomping on a piece of gum as she bends to lean into James’ window.

“Hey, James” She greets, heavily accented. Teresa was still getting used to the southern twang in Texan’s' voices’.

“You always smell like cinnamon gum” James comments smoothly and Teresa watches it. The way he’s able to turn from sulky to charming in 0.5 seconds.

“Oh that’s weird? Because I’m always chewing cinnamon gum” the girl looks like she knows what he’s up to “Is this her?”

“Yeah” James tells the woman, before looking at Teresa “this is Gloria. She’s gonna take you inside the party” Gloria waves at Teresa a little who smiles a little forced back before snatching the money James holds out.

“Come on, baby, lets go”

James stops Teresa before she exits to follow Gloria.

“Before you go, I want you to take this device. You go inside and you wait for me to call you” Teresa looks at him, and then the small remote skeptically

“That’s it” he reassures as she grabs it “Nothing to it”

“What does it do?” She really does ask a lot of fucking questions. He could see why Epifanio was so keen on keeping her quiet. She’d probably asked the wrong question at the wrong time.

“It messes up birds” he responds simply, shortly. “So listen, the guy that’s having the party: that’s Eric. That’s the guy you want to stay away from”

Teresa glares at him, for just a moment more, before she gets out to follow Gloria.

He runs a hand over his hair covered chin. Fuck.

He still wasn’t sure that she could handle shit as big as this, he can only hope she can as he sees her be let into the party.

James waits a good forty five or so minutes, for the sun to get lower in the sky, before he turns back on the car to go park it at a better vantage point.

He’s just put the keys in the ignition when he spots her.

His hands go numb.

Kat’s making her way across the lawn; a little black dress hugging her frame and Leo in tow. She’s laughing at something, a full open mouthed toothy smile. It’s glowy. She’s fucking glowing, illuminated head to toe and he remembers her telling something about how she liked to bathe in highlighter…

He’s conflicted. A part of him wants to get out of the car, and go and yank her little ass into the car. He doesn’t even think he’d really care if he made a scene.

And oh, would Kat make a s _cene_ if he tried to pull something like that.

The better part of him, the professional, trained, part knows that that would be exposing himself and he couldn’t do that right now.

Getting his ducks in line for Eric was more important.

He grips the wheel of the Lexus with white knuckles as he watches her get in, past the bouncers.

What’s that he feels in his stomach? Anger or fear?

* * *

 

By the time Kat and Leo arrive at the party it’s aready been going for a few hours.

“What kind of freak throws a party at 4 o’clock?”  Leo had judged in the uber on the way there.

“A coked out one” Kat had answered as she applied and perfected a layer of nude lipstick.

She looked nice tonight, had put extra effort into it. She’d spent close to two hours in her large bathroom, curling and pinning her hair just right and blending out her makeup as though it was an art form. Covering her body in Tom Ford body before slipping on a back wrap front dress over a pair of spanx that killed her but made her appear to be shaped like a coke bottle.

She seemed dripped in gold, from the dainty chain that wrapped around her neck and then dipped into her exposed cleavage to the large hoops that hung from her ears and the bangles and rings that enveloped her arms and fingers.

Wrapped up like a present; she had her own plan for the night and if she wanted it to work then she’d have to catch Eric’s attention.

Look like the innocent flower, but be the serpent underneath.

The party’s in full swing when Kat and Leo walk in; the atmosphere is completely buzzing as though the entire room had just taken a line. Which they probably had.

It wasn’t the best party she’d been to and honestly she wasn’t impressed as her and Leo made their way to the bar, through the gyrating bodies.

“Everyone’s all fucked up, up in here” Leo comments as they watch a girl stumble and then fall into a potted plant. Kat chuckles lowly.

“They pregamed too hard”

“This whole party is a pregame. I’m telling you no self-respecting person starts a party at four. What is he? Like 70?” Leo snuffs before telling the bar tender he’d take a white Russian.

“And you, pretty eyes?”  The female bartender flirts with Kat.

“Can I get a cran and vodka?”

“You sure can”

Kat revels in the attention. She’d never admit it but she eats it up; when people notice her. Fawn over her.

Her narcissism can honestly rise to disgusting highs. 

She’s looking around the party, for a head of curly hair, when she spots a familiar face and by some kind of syzygy the woman seems to turn and spot her too.

“Kat!” The woman’s obviously had a few bumps. Her eyes are too big. Her voice too cheery.

“Gloria, hi” Kat lets Gloria hug her shortly. They’d never been friends per say. Gloria was kind of a groupie- but she was a groupie with the ins.  She repeats the hug with Leo.

“I didn’t even notice you until now! I would have thought you’d come in with me and James’ girl”

Kat’s smile is tight at that.

“Yeah no. I had to run some errands before this” Kat lies as she takes her drink from the pretty bar tender and takes a long sip.

The thing about Gloria is that she can talk for-fucking-ever. Which Kat usually doesn’t mind because she isn’t exactly quiet herself but on a night like this, she excuses herself from the conversation and let’s Leo endure the endless chatter.

She’s not really there to party, which is why she’s had the same drink in her hand for over half an hour and it’s not even half empty.

When she sees Teresa on the other side of the room she cant help the grin that tugs on her lips. She’s beautiful, all dolled up in a sparkly red dress that she somehow manages to pull off as elegant and not tacky.

Kat’s never seen the darker haired woman like this, and she can see now, even more then before, why Guero had been so over the moon about her.

Teresa and Kat meet gazes and Teresa looks confused for a moment.

They can’t speak, Kat tries to make it clear through the look. No one can know they know each other.

Kat looks away quickly then and Teresa has seemed to take the hint because she doesn’t come over, they keep their distance, knowing that they both have goals to accomplish here.

Kat let’s Eric think he’s found her, even though she’d watched him for a few minutes before starting to play.

“Kat!” He roars boisterously “Well look at you, I wasn’t expecting to see your face here tonight?”

“Why? Was I not invited?” is Kat’s coy reply.

“No, of course you’re always invited. I know how hard you can party” He laughs “I just didn’t think your guard dog would be letting you come tonight”

“And who would that be?” Kat bubbles.

“You know. Camila obviously. She doesn’t let you out of her sight, not that I blame her with how you look tonight. But the rest of us would like to play sometime”

Kat fights through the uncomfortableness as he un-bashfully looks her up and down. She knew that this is what was going to happen- what she dressed for. But there’s a difference between someone giving you attention and someone digesting you with their eyes.

“Well the rest of you can wait your turn” She teases “do a line with me?”

“Of course” He lines up a few thin trails of coke and then hands her a rolled up hundred dollar bill. “Madam”

She takes it and does two lines. One in each nostril. She rubs at them with a manicured finger before she drags it across the table to get the excess and rubs it along her gums.

Damn. Fucking damn. That’s some potent shit. Her gums are instantly numb and she can feel the drip in her throat.

“Good shit, huh?” Eric gloats before taking his own lines.

It was good. Better than anything they were selling.

“Did my grandfather sell you that? That shit’s insane”

“A good dealer never reveals his source” She laughs at him, but it’s her social laugh. The one she uses when she’s out in public so she doesn’t hurt anyone’s feelings.

“If you say so, sir. I don’t know how all of my Columbian relatives don’t have holes permanent holes in their noses though” She rubs her nose a little more, for dramatic effect mostly and he laughs and tells her its genetic evolution.

He answers her question without knowing.

Hmm. So it is from Columbia.

“Another?” He goes to hand her the rolled bill again and she denies him with a wave and a “I have to pace myself”

He just hands the bill to another scantily clad girl who does three in a row.

Kat isn’t aware of it, but from outside- beyond the fence and hidden in the shadows- she’s being watched.

 James watches her through the camera lenses, pulls up the picture bigger on the connected iPad on the dash. His stomach is in knots as he watches her charm and flirt with Eric. As he sees the man who’s nearly twice her age look at her as though she’s something to eat.

He feels sick. The car’s too small and he’s too far away to be able to do anything; to be able to knock that look off of Eric’s face.

He forces himself to stay focused on the task at hand and turns the lenses to Teresa before texxting the brunette.

-Go to the master bedroom. 1st floor. Left down the hall-

She’s obedient; when she gets the text she follows the directions and makes her way to the master bedroom.

What kind of idiot is a drug dealer and lives in a glass house?  James really can’t stand Eric.

When Teresa’s in the bedroom is when he calls her.

“This is what I want you to do. On the floor, there’s a grate”

“Yeah”

“Give it a tug, pull the grate out”

Teresa does as she’s told, on high alert for anyone to walk in and see what she’s doing. Her hands are steady even though she’s terrified of getting caught.

Everything is going to plan; she’s put the gadget into the vent and is still on the room to make sure it “works” right as according to James. It’s been smooth sailing, just like he’d hoped it would be/ That is until he see’s a group of men heading for the master bedroom.

“Wait, wait, wait” He stops her over the phone, the tone of his voice has changed and it makes her stomach drop “Some one’s coming. Hide!”

He can only watch, helplessly as Teresa hides in the adjacent bathroom to the bedroom. He’s twitchy and filling with adrenalin as he looks on the iPad screen.

“Oh shit” He murmers to himself. There’s a guy, a tied up guy. Eric’s goons had broght him onto the room and sat him in one of the armchairs. That’s trouble.

The girl really has the worst fucking luck.

He cant hear whats going on in the room but from what he can see; Teresa’s about to leave after a short conversation with the man who’s tied up, but she turns back around- back tracking to the bathroom.

“What the hell are you doing?” James runs a hand over his lower face and then holds his chin as he watches in anticipation.

That door could open and Eric could walk in any second. Their plan would be fucked.

He feels mixture of annoyance and empathy as he watches her try to free the man, unsuccessfully, before she exits the bedroom and manages to make her way out of the party.

When she’s near the door he decides it’s time to test out the frequency device; if it didn’t work she would have to go back and get it so they could fix it and try again.

His stomach is hollow as he presses the single button on the small remote in his hand.

It’s instantaneous, the chaos. The many birds that were caged outside of Eric’s house begin to go crazy; they screech loudly and flap their wings against the metal bars.

He feels a small thrill of success.

Kat’s still in the kitchen with Eric; joined by Leo now and they’re taking shots with the man, laughing and talking about nothing. Talking about everything.

“Hey Eric! The birds are freaking out, man!” One of the other guests calls to Eric and Kat’s internally grinning as Eric drops his martini glass and runs for the side door.

It worked, she thinks to herself. She could only hope that James had been able to find a vantage point that lined up with the cages, because if he had, then they finally had the upper hand in the situation again.

The birdman wasn’t so untouchable after all.

She takes a celebratory shot; the vodka burns all the way down her throat and notices Teresa leave the party.

How could she not notice her? The girl was a sparkling neon red ‘look at me’ sign tonight.

James really had no tact, she rolls her eyes.

* * *

 

“You didn’t kill him” Teresa accuses hotly as she meets James at the end of the driveway and he ignores her attitude and turns away.

“I didn’t say that it would be tonight”

Teresa really can’t stand him.

“Birdman: His name’s Eric Watson. He doesn’t belong here, he’s just babysitting land” James explains to her after the long walk that it takes to get to his hidden car.

Maybe he’s just trying to break up the silence. Maybe he thinks she deserves to know what she’s getting herself int.

“What do you mean?”

“Camila only owns half of Dallas, did you know that? The Jimenez cartel owns the other half. I’m sure you’ve heard of them” James continues and Teresa tells him ‘yes’ before she get’s into the car. He follows suit.

“They have an accord with Epifanio-allows them to use Dallas as a hub. Get down to the ports if there’s trouble with their other outlets” James situates himself back into the driver’s seat “so if the DEA’s up their ass, they can get drugs to Europe. Keep’s supply going out, keeps money coming in”

Teresa rolls it over in her head, absorbing all the information he’s willing to give.

“They sent this prick to babysit their land. They thing is, Camila wants all of Dallas” James stares out into the distance, where the party is still raging. “They could give two shits about the coke business here; they just want to use the ports when they need ‘em. Eric Watson, just a seat filler”

The look of disgust on James face is poignant. Teresa doesn’t know if she’s ever seen him so annoyed before.

“He’s a fly in the ointment…one I have to be sanctioned to smush. Not yet”

Ah, Teresa puts it together. The accord Epifanio had made kept the blood shed between the two cartels at bay. That’s why James hadn’t killed The Bird Man, and why Kat had been inside.

“So that’s why Kat was talking with him inside; because neither side can touch each other?” Teresa wonders aloud and James face contorts again.

“That’s a part of it. I’m taking it you know who Kat’s family is? The Alma’s from Columbia?” Teresa nods “They wouldn’t touch her; if they did Reynaldo would completely cut them off and they know it”

James eyes look…dazed as he talks about the topic and Teresa wonders if his and Kat’s relationship is as professional as they both try to make it seem.

“So if Kat was invited to the party, and they can’t touch her, why did you bring me?”

“Because even if he can’t hurt her I know he’s been watching her all night” James recalls the way Eric had feasted on Kat visually and takes a long drag of his cigarette- needing the nicotine rush “She wouldn’t have been able to go two feet in there without someone’s eyes on her.  She wasn’t even supposed to be in there tonight”

James sounds a little strained at the end and Teresa wonders if he’s going to go and pull the girl from the party. She wonders a lot in that moment; about James and Kat.

“So what are we doing here?” Teresa reiterates. For she’s still not been told why she had to sneak into that bedroom with that device.

James looks at her as though it’s the most evident thing in the world.

“We’re preparing for our future” He holds up a hand in a ‘obviously’ manner “I’m gonna get the green light. It’s just a matter of time. And with your help” He holds up the remote to the frequency device “I’;; be ready”

“Camila grows; so do you” Teresa looks away. Greed didn’t get you anywhere. Fuck, look at where it had gotten Guero.

She didn’t even know where his body was.

“I don’t have to own the whole building. I just want a few bricks” James shrugs her off, because obviously she was attempting to climb the ladder that was the cartel world too.

It all happens fast. The camera lense is still pointed at Eric’s bedroom and the scene from inside of it plays out on the iPad screen.

“Such a kind prick” James mocks as they watch what unfolds..

He’s not expecting Teresa tottaly freak out when Eric puts a bag over the man’s head and suffocates him. James had thought she knew that it was coming.

“Do something! We have to help him!” She cries as she flails, honking the horn and trying to get out. He grabs her tightly, frustrated as he holds on to her.

She was going to blow it! All for some asshole she didn’t even know. He knew he couldn’t trust her with something this big!

“He’s going to kill him, cant you see that?”

“Stop it! Calm down!”

James tries to put her in a headlock but she fights hard, her wild hair flying.

It’s only when the man is obviously dead on the screen and they watch Erick leave the room that Teresa goes still. He removes his arms from around her slowly, not sure what she’s going to go. She jerks hard back into her seat and he thinks that she’s lucky it’s him she’s working with. If it was any other one of the guys; she’d be sporting a blackened eye or broken nose right now.

“It took me six months to find out where this shithead lives” James hisses at her “That is not my business. Her would have been here even if we weren’t, okay? It’s not on us. We did nothing wrong”

“We did nothing because of you” Teresa accuses as she shakes her head.

She imagines Guero. She imagines the people that stood by as he was killed.

“What would you have done, hmm? There’s nothing you could have done. He chose to be in Eric’s world. ..and that’s his bad decision. Not ours. You couldn’t have saved him”

She doesn’t seem to be taking him seriously, and he’s had a hell of a few days, so he takes it out on her a little.

“If I would have let you try, all you would of done was expose what I’m doing. And I’m not going to let that happen. So don’t look away. That’s your world now”

She turns to him, her eyes sad and hard all at once and he continues. “That’s your fucking world now”

* * *

 

In Bogota Colmbia, it’s two in the morning when Reynaldo Alma receives a call. He’s sitting at his mahogany desk, going over paper work when his secretary tells him

“Patron, Camila Vargas”

Reynaldo smiles and takes the call that’s been transferred over to the phone at his desk.

“Munequita, how are you, my love?” He starts in Spanish. Reynaldo could speak English, decent enough, but he much preferred his mother tongue, “You know why I call you munequita?”

“Because you’re an old world chauvinist prick?” Camila retorts back from the other line in Spanish.

“Because youre like a doll. Very beautiful in the day, but at night, you scare me” He jests back.

“You always knew how to sweet talk me, Reynaldo” 

He laughs good naturedly. He’d always liked Camila, always been fond of that fire and sharp tongue of hers.

“I wanted to know if you can expedite my next shipment?”

“It’s already on its way, mi amor”

“How long?” Camila needs it now. Her costumers are getting too antsy. Too handsy.

“Forty eight hours, max”

“Any chance you can make it twenty four?” Camila pushes, knowing he’d bend.

“For you, I can try” He’d do his best. He really would. Even though she had been a bit late with payment’s lately, she was taking care of his Kat in Texas. He would continue to help her however he could.

“Good. Thank you. That would save me a lot of problems. Would you let me know?”

“Consider it done. How are things in Texas? How’s my granddaughter?” He inquires, his eyes going to the framed picture that sat on his desk. It was him; much younger with his wife and four sons surrounding him. Kat’s father’s smile is the biggest.

"She's good, you know I take care of her. She's a smart one, your grandaughter. She's a natural at this business" At first, Camila had taken Kat under her wing as a poker chip. As a way to ensure the Colombians cooperation.

But the green eyed girl had grown on her.

Kat had that effect on people…

"I know, and I appreciate it very much. Her father was like that, sharp as a tack. I couldn't get anything past that kid. It's just that...she doesn't answer my calls all the time and I need to make sure she's okay" Reynaldo looks away from the photo as he talks.

He didn’t blame Kat for being distant. Before her father had died, he hadn’t even seen the girl since she was five. She didn’t know him, and he didn’t know her. But he was trying. Especially now that she had inherited her father’s piece of the “empire”.

“Trust me when I say I understand how that feels” Camila truly does; in her call log were dozens of ignored calls she’d made to Isabela in the last week. “She’s safe her, Reynaldo”

Reynaldo knows better; he’s been in the business for too long. No where’s completely safe; but he does trust Camila with Kat. Knows the woman will do the best to protect her, knows that if anything were to get messy he’d just drag her to Colombia where he could protect her himself

“Muchas Gracias, my little doll” Reynaldo thanks her before he hangs up the phone.

He can’t see the smile that drops off of Camila’s face as the call ends.

* * *

 

Teresa’s still pissed when James drops her back off at the warehouse. She’s changed back into her clothes and out of the red dress as she storms out of the car, ignoring his comment about her needing to learn.

She has to get out. That’s all she can think as she goes to her bunk. She tries to call Brenda, but her call is ignored.

“Brenda it’s me, look I know you’re mad at me, but I really need you to call me back. I have to figure out a way out of here” Teresa leaves her best friend a voice mail.

She wants to scream, her fight or flight instincts are going crazy as she sits numbly on her bed.

When The Charger approaches her she already knows what he’s going to ask of her.

“Hey, Camila wants to see you”

And even though all she wants to do is tell him to go and fuck himself, she follows him back to a room in the back of the warehouse.

When she enters, through the plastic hangings on the door she sees James and Camila standing close together, talking quiet but fast. Kat is sitting on the edge of the metal table in the middle of the room, still in her party dress.

Teresa wonders when she had gotten back from the Bird Mans.

Kat the first one to notice her in the door way and she gives Teresa a small, tired smile.

“Sit” Camila orders and when Teresa takes a seat in one of the plastic folding chairs, Kat gets up and goes to stand at the opposite end of the cabinets.

Still keeping a good distance away from James.

He notices it. It makes the back of his neck hot with pent up frustration.

“I understand you’re probably shook up by what happened tonight, and with the two dead bodies the other day at the drug bust. Well, if I we’re you…I probably would be thinking…tomorrow at sunrise, when the first light hits the ground, I’m gonna’ run”

Teresa tries to keep a straight face, tries to keep her composure even though Camila had hit the nail on the head with her little speech.

“I’m sure you understand by now that you’re very important to me because of what you have against Epifanio. So I wouldn’t be talking from a selfish point view if I told you that if you run away, and I had to kill you, I would be very disappointed”

Kat’s looking anywhere but at the two women, her eyes scanning everything in the room to attempt to not watch this. She focuses on one of the bigger paint peels in the corner of the room.

“Not only because of what you have against my husband; but because I’m really…I’m really starting to like you. You see those things today, you cant run away from that” Camila ensures as she leans forward on both arms “You see your real family may have abandoned you, but this one wont”

Kat bites the inside of her lip, that’s still a little numb from the coke, so hard it almost bleeds.

Teresa’s “real family”, Guero, hadn’t abandoned her. Epifanio had killed him.

Kat doesn’t know if she could keep her mouth shut the way Teresa does in that moment if their roles we’re reversed and she feels a wave of sympathy for the girl sitting in the chair.

“You don’t have to be afraid about Epifanio. I’ll take care of him”

In Colombia, Reynaldo who’s still at his desk receives his second Vargas phone call of the night.

Do they ever fucking sleep? He thinks.

“It’s Don Epifanio” His assistant tells him as he hands him the phone and Reynaldo fights a laugh before composing himself.

The two really we’re savage dogs, always biting at his heels.

He’s ready to lie, as he had been for nearly the past year. Epifanio hadn’t been aware of Reynaldo’s side deal with Camila, with the extra product he was selling her.

And honestly, Reynaldo didn’t care. He’d do business with whoever he wanted, whenever he wanted.

“Don Epifanio Vargas” Reynaldo rolls the ‘s’ on his tongue as he answers the phone.

“I want to talk to you. It’s something important about my wife. I know you’re supplying her”

Reynaldo rolls his eyes at the accusation in Epifanio’s tone.

“Yes. So what?” his reply is more than taunting.

“So, I want you to stop. I have something in mind for my wife that you don’t want to be a part of. Don’t want Katrina to be a part of” And that’s all Epifanio says before the line goes dead.

Reynaldo stares at the phone in his hand, clutching it as an electric shock of anger passed through him. He would not be told what he could and couldn’t do. Not by Epifanio, not by anyone. And if Epifanio ever threatened to involve Kat in any way again; the man would regret it.

**_Okay you guys, so this is a long one. Over six thousand words! I’m trying to make this as much about the story as it is about Kat and James’ romance. And about thattttt. A lot of you keep asking when the two are going to get together and trust me when I say I’m dying for that moment myself. But I’m trying to keep this realistic. And we’re dealing with two very stubborn people here. I want them to want each other so badly that they can’t help but give in before I have them be together. I love that push and pull they have._ **

**_But just so you guys have something to look forward to; I’m already dying to write some smuttiness between the two. I love their complexity and I think when we start getting into that…wooh! It’s going to be SO hot!!! So keep reviewing and reading! You won’t regret it!_ **

 


	8. Blue Velvet

“Hi grandpa” Kat had forced herself to take the call when she’d seen who was on the caller ID. She couldn’t keep casually avoiding his calls and have there be no reprecussins.

“Call your grandfather” Camila had insisted the other night “Or better yet, answer his calls when he calls you”

“Chiquia, how are you? Hows the weather down in Texas?” The Colombian laced voice echoes from her receiver. She smiles smalley. He really does try…his English wasn’t the best and yet everytime he talked to her he used his small English word arsenal to communicate with her

“I’m okay and it’s like a thousand degrees here but I’ll survive” Kat is leaning against the outside wall of the warehouse as she talks to him, looking down at her white leopard print heels.

“Just okay? That’s no good. Go and treat yourself, chiquia. There’s spas down in Texas no?”

Kat chuckles and shakes her head.  “Yeah, Grandpa, there’s spa’s but I have work to do”

“Not any that makes you unhappy. I want you to be happy there, okay?” She nods even though he cant see her and then tells him okay “Your cousins Albert is coming to make the delivery. He’s excited to see you, you’ve never had the chance to meet”

Kat grimaces at this. Great. Forced family gatherings. “I’m excited to see him, we’ll go to dinner or something”

“Good, good. You need to spend more time with this family. Why don’t you fly out to Colombia for this weekend? It’s beautiful this time of year”

She feels a lump in her throat at the thought. She hadn’t been to Colombia since the funeral.

“Yeah, I’ll see what’s going on with my schedule this weekend. Hey, grandpa, I’ve got to go. I’ll call you back later, okay?

There’s a short pause.

“Okay, mija. I love you”

“Love you too”

Camila’s in her office with Allen, and Kat’s sitting at the bar, leaning against it as she stares at her phone and chews on her manicured thumb nail. She’s nervous. This whole thing is making her nervous as shit. She doesn’t like all of this waiting.

She also didn’t like drinking in the day time, a family of alcoholics had done that to her, but she orders a vodka soda anyway and heads up to Camila’s office where her and James are sat in a passionate conversation, they don’t break it as she walks in. They both just look up, see it’s her, and continue on. She sits next to Camila, leaning against the arm rest.

“You know it’s Eric who started this shit, right?” James voice is blazing “I mean you know that better then anyone? Bird brain. I’m ready to make that problem go away. Just say the word and he’s gone. I’ll eat his god damn birds one at a time”

Camila smiles and Kat can’t help the one that stretches over her features either, she takes a sip of her drink and shakes her head.

She was still icing James out. Still pissed as shit about the other day.

“You know it’s not as easy as that” Camila says regretfully before her phone vibrates and she picks it up.

“It’s Colombia, they advanced the delivery. It’s conformed” She grins before looking at Kat “Make sure to call Reynaldo and give him my thanks later, Mija”

“Will do” Kat reply’s, the vodka straw in her mouth. James doesn’t look very relived, he’s still scratching his bearded chin in worry.

“So we’re no longer low on product, the shipment is arriving later today and I want you to receive it personally” Camila instructs him.

“I should go too. One of my cousins is coming to visit, I guess” Kat adds.   
  
“No” Both Camila and James say it at the same time and Kat’s head shoots in their direction in wonder.

What the fuck?

“A shipment receival is too dangerous. James will bring him back with him to meet you here”

Kat just nods tersely before standing up and leaving, her heels clicking against the floor heatedly.

She’s so fucking sick of them. Had she really wanted to go? No. But she was sick of being told what to do. What she could and couldn’t do.

James watches her leave the whole way, watches her back until it’s out of view.

Camila watches James, a knowing smirk on her face.

She was smart enough to put two and two together- and she had seen this for a while. She was a woman after all.

“Is there anything you want to tell me James?” She wonders coyly and James fights the urge to glare at her.

“No”

Camila could call his bluff if she wanted to but she chooses not to “Okay then. Go get ready”

Kat watches James, Teresa and another man she didn’t know well lever for the drug pickup with a scowl and when her phone rings she answers it sharper then she means to.

“Hello”

“Hello Ms. Portokalos? It’s Marcus Vega” She perks up at this. What was the Alama lawyer doing calling her now? “I have some paper work I would like you to look over as soon as possible”

“Yeah, okay. When would be the best time?”

“I’m free now if you want to meet for an early lunch in an hour?”

“I can do that. Message me the address and I’ll be there”

Kat hangs up then and prepares to leave, shrugging on her camel colored blazer and putting her oversized cat sunglasses on.

“Where are you going?” Camila questions as she sees the girl preparing to leave.

“Leo wants to grab lunch. I’ll be back later” Is all Kat says in response before she’s out of the door, and out of the club.

She thinks long and hard about why she had lied to Camila on the way to the restaurant. Maybe because it gave her a sense of power? Like she was in control of something for once.

“You have to work out your control issues, Kat” one of her many therapists had once told her “You have to let go, everything can’t always go the way you want it to”

You see, she thought that was bullshit.

Yeah, there were things in life she couldn’t control, she could stop or alter. But the shit she could? She was going to keep on top of.

Fate or free will?

She liked to think the world was made up of both. That there was some kind of balance.

Was it her fate? To be in this life? Maybe.

But all the choices that came now? We’re just that. Her choices.

The restaurant Vega chooses to meet her at is nice but not extensively so; one of those modern urban ones.  She sees the short, dark skinned man waiting at the table as one of the waiters escorts her to the seat across from him.

“Good afternoon” She tells him with a smile and he responds in kind.

“So when did you get to Texas? I thought you we’re based in New York?” She starts in, wanting to know why he’d summoned her.

“I am mostly but I wanted to go through this paper work with you face to face. Now you know, I was your dad’s personal lawyer” She did know that, he’d been the one to get all of her dad’s finances straightened with her when he died “And his accountant called me about this. We’d all looked over it but now I’m thinking we shouldn’t have”

“What is it?”

The waitress interrupts, asking them if they we’re ready to order some drinks.

Since she’d already started her day with a cocktail, she decides to go the lemon water route. Vega orders a white wine. The moment the red headed woman is out of earshot, he continues.

“He put a lot of stock into a series of off shore accounts. Now we’ve been trying to  figure out what those vales could be, but there’s lots of loops we’ve got to jump through here.  And since you’re the only one who can access information in his accounts we were wondering if you had any idea what these could be?”

Kat shakes her head. She’d barley known the man. How the fuck was she supposed to know what kind of embezzling he was doing in off shore accounts.

“I don’t have any idea”

“Okay, do you think anyone else would? Maybe we should contact your grandfather?”

Again a flare of rebellion licks her stomach.

“No, just like you said I’m the only one with access to this account” Her voice is business like and stern “For the time being I’d like just us to look into this. If it ends up being something of importance, then I’ll consider telling him”

Vega looks apologetic. He’d worked with Alma’s before. And she might have not been raised an Alma, but that tone she’d just taken on was very much an Alma tone.

Harsh. Warning.

“Of course, Ms. Portokalos. Confidentiality is very important to me”

“Good. It is to me too” Kat smiles as she says this and the waitress puts her glass in front of her.

It’s unnerving.

The rest of the short lunch is pretty uneventful. Boring even. Talking about numbers and 401k’s and financing.

Ugh.

Adulting.

It’s only when one of the flat screen’s in the corner of the restaurant which is turned to the news starts airing a ‘Breaking News Story’ that the lunch seems to take a turn.

“Police are teaming up with residents in Downtown Dallas to find the assailants of a deadly drug bust that left two dead tonight”

Kat blanches, then feels a little panic.

Two dead.

Her stomach drops.

Vega see’s the look on her face and he knows. He knows the business her and her family we’re in.

“Do you need to leave? I’ll get the check”

“No, I-I can pay-“

“I’m a seven hundred dollar per hour lawyer, you’ve paid enough today. I’ll get the bill” He offers and she’s up before he’s even finished his sentence.

“Thank you. I’ll call you soon!” She shoots behind her as she speed walks out of there, dialing Camila’s number.

“What’s going on? It’s all over the news” She says lowly, but panicked as Camila answers.

“Kat- get back to the club”

The entire car ride had been hell. She had no idea what was going on except for that there were two people dead and that they had lost a shit ton  of money.

She takes the steps to Camila’s office way faster then she should have done in heels, almost tripping twice, and then all but runs to the room, taking only a small beat before pushing open the door.

James is sitting across from Camila and she lets the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding.

Oh thank god.

But then she sees the expression on both of their faces and that lump comes back.

“Did we lose it all? Was it the DEA? What? What’s going on?” She shoots question after question at them because why the fuck are they looking at her that way?

Camila stands and comes over to her.

“Kat, your cousin…he was one of the one’s who died. He was shot”

Kat’s head feels numb and she wants to laugh. Really? They’d scared her, this bad, for a cousin she’d never met?

It’s almost fucked up- No it is fucked up that relief fills her. She didn’t have a normal reaction to death. Both of her parents we’re dead and gone- so why would this cousin brake her? Why should she break?

“Oh”

Is her genius reply. All she can think to say. James’ head drops and Camila reaches out a hand and places it on her shoulder.

Kat doesn’t feel it.

Kat doesn’t feel anything.

“I um…I think I’m going to head home. I have to call Reynaldo” She adds in an attempt to make sense of this situation.

“Of course, honey. You go. Call me if you need to okay”

Kat nods numbly and then is out of the room as fast as she’d ran into it.

She stares at her phone in her hand. She does that a lot. And tries to figure out a way to tell her grandfather that the cousin he’d wanted her to meet was in a body bag at the police station morgue.

She wondered when, not if, she’d join him.

**_Finally getting all these Chapters published on this site! Hope you guys are enjoying them_ **


	9. Old Money

His head is between Kat’s legs, the dark curls being gripped in her fists as her meaty thighs clench around his ears and seems to fill them, block them off from the real world. He can hear his heart pounding in his own head, his blood rushing as he feasts on her, the bottom half of his face completely immersed in her core. His chin is jutting into her hole, his nose pressing against her clit as he open mouth laps at her.

It’s like floating.

It’s like peace.

All he can focus on is trying to eat her whole through her cunt because fuck he’s wanted this for so long, wanted her flayed open. Wanted to tear her apart, wanted her to willingly let him tear her apart. Every time she wore one of those little skirts, every time she looked up at him through those thick eyelashes (which was every time she looked at him because she was nearly a foot shorter than him) it made some animal part of him, that part that he constantly tried to repress, bare its teeth.

She’s writing, the squeaks she makes are breathy, almost like she’s in pain as she keeps trying to pull herself away. He keeps a vice like grip on her soft hips though, plowing himself forward.

She couldn’t get away.

He wouldn’t let her go anywhere.

Didn’t she get it yet? He’d hold her down, she could kick and scream but he wasn’t going to loosen his grip on her. And it was her own fucking fault. For making him laugh. For keeping him on his toes. For being her.

“James” high pitched and desperate and it spurs him on.

James.

James.

“James” This time it has a southern twinge to it and he feels his shoulder being nudged.

James’ dark eyes snap open and he’s assaulted by blaring early morning sunlight that’s pouring in through the cream colored drapes. Fuck, he was late.

He takes a minute to breathe through his nose, to try to catch his breath before he turns his head to face the woman who had woken him up.

“Baby, your alarms been going off for, like, ten minutes” Kim’s all groggy as she looks over at him with bug blue eyes “Are you okay? You we’re thrashing something fierce”

He’s uncomfortable, his chest feels heavy and his teeth clench as a feeling he’s all too familiar with washes over him. Guilt.  He had been dreaming about lounge fucking his boss; his boss who was eight years younger than him, while his girlfriend slept net to him.

What kind of prick did something like that?

His straining erection doesn’t help his guilt much.

“Nothing, babe. I don’t even remember what I was dreaming about”

“Really? Cause someone’s standing tall for attention” Kim giggles scooting closer to him and pressing a kiss to his bare shoulder and he feels like scum.

“You know my morning routine” He gruffly laughs her off “I’m late, I’ve gotta’ go shower” He pushes himself up and out of bed and she doesn’t protest she just stretched out in his place.

“Love you, baby. Have a good day”

When he tells her he loves her back it feels like lead in his mouth.

When Kat walks into the warehouse, and flips her hair behind her shoulders she’s happy to be out of the heat.

Was she still feeling the weight of a cousin she’d never known death?

Yup.

Did she have the time to focus on it right now?

No.

She looks around and then see’s Teresa, in the mule’ area.

Kat replays the other nights events to herself in her head.

and in all the chaos she hadn’t gotten to talk to her. She knew it hadn’t been easy for the brunette, knew that the woman must still be taking it pretty hard so she starts over in her direction to do some damage control.

Kat doesn’t get far because Teresa gets up and actually starts coming in her direction.

“Teresa-Hi”

Teresa stops in her tracks and looks at the shorter woman. She’s dressed to the nines as usual, nude color of the dress she had on highlighting her tan.

“Hey” Teresa smiles uncomfortably, tight and forced and Kat picks up on it easily. “I have to speak with the Charger”

“Why?” Kat questions, her face concerned.

Real or fake concern, Teresa doesn’t know.

She does know however; that Kat is high ranking, had rank over the Charger and that even though her request sound polite- it was a demand.  Plus the Charger was jabbering away on his cellphone across the lot, obviously busy.

So even though Teresa had no desire to talk to her, she did.

“There’s a sick girl, it’s pretty bad”

“Who?” Kat’s eyes scanned the beds. There couldn’t be any sick girls, they could spread infection.

“One of the mules, she needs a doctor. And I don’t know anyone”

Kat chews her lip at this and wracks her brain.

Who owed her a favor?

“Doctor Cohen” It dawns onto her “That’s his name; his office isn’t that far from here. It’s like a fifteen minute drive” Kats grabbed a small, spare, note pad from one of the tables and is writing the information down for Teresa “I cant go with you, I have some stuff to handle this morning but tell him Kat sent you, okay? He won’t give you any trouble” She rips the paper out of the spiral notebook and hands it to Teresa.

“Thank you” Teresa’s still terse as she takes the paper and turns to leave, still untrusting and traumatized and Kat remembers what it was like to see someone die, someone be murdered for the first time.

“Teresa” The dark haired woman stops in her tracks and looks back at the younger.

“I’m sorry, I know it sucks okay?” It’s all Kat can think to say and even as it leaves her mouth she sounds stupid to her own ears “It always sucks…I left my number at the bottom of that. Call me. If you need me” And with a nod and eyes more compassionate then Teresa had ever seen them Kat walks away.

Camila had gone to that biker bar with James to check on a client and Kat was happy she’d opted out of it. One, because she couldn’t stand that bar. She’d met some pretty decent bikers, so she couldn’t stereo type them all, but that place smelled like new ports and unwashed beards.  And two, she was still trying to keep some distance between James and herself.

She thinks it’s for the best, the healthiest thing she could do for their relationship. She’s sick of fighting him every second, and the only way she knows will surely keep said fighting at bay, is for her to speak to him as little as possible.

Every time they spoke, they disagreed. He undermined her or she mistook something he said.

It was bad for business.

And that’s all their relationship was. They worked for the same fucked up bloody corporation and she needed to keep reminding herself that.

She’s on the phone with Tyrell- one of their buyers trying to reason with him when Camila arrives back to her office. Kat’s perched one of the leather couches, her iPhone glued to her ear.

“And I get that, but we’re getting shipment in as we speak. I need you to think about how good our relationship has always been and suck it up for the rest of the day, okay” Kat cajoles, her voice sweet and firm at the same time and Camila appreciates that she’s absorbed it from her.  “And if they have anything to say about it remind them who you buy your coke from. Alright. Yes, I’ll call you. Bye”

“You have him under control?” Camila’s more acknowledging then asking.

“Of course” Kat says as though it’s obvious. She could handle guy’s like Tyrell. Lower-levels. Easy. “How did it go at the bar?”

“Not well. Not at all. He’s buying from Eric, and he said that Allen is too”

Kat feels hear surge in her face. Fuck. That’s not good.

“Those pussies. What kind of unprofessional assholes cant wait a few days while we restock” Kat shakes her head and folds her arms over her chest as she fights the annoyance flaring in her “I swear there’s no fucking loyalty. This world is programmed to run on greed”

“This is a greedy business, Kat”

Kat knows that. She also knows it’s a bloody one.

“I don’t get we don’t just kill Eric? He’s the reason this is happening. I know it would piss of the Jimenez but that’s nothing we can’t handle.  It would honestly be the lesser of two evils”

Camila grins and sighs and shakes her head “James said the exact same thing”

Kat puts on that detached act. She just nods. “He’s right”

“He oversaw the delivery earlier, you know” Camila informs her and Kat fights the urge to shrug.

“That right?”

“It is…Katrina did something happen between the two of you? I can’t help but notice that usually I can’t shut you both up when you’re put together. And now you barley say a word. Everything is okay, right? Because we have a job to do. With everything that’s going on, all these shipment seizing’s, I need you both ”

Kat’s annoyed, more annoyed then she should be. She gets that Camila’s just trying to keep her business running but she’s not a child and shes DAMN sick of being addressed as one. She could handle her own issues. She didn’t need mommy Camila stepping in.

“I’m more then capable of keeping things professional, which is what I’m doing. You don’t need to worry about it”

Camila’s about to respond when the ring of an incoming call interrupts her.

It’s Epfanio.

The red queen sighs and takes the call, knowing exactly what he was calling about.

Kat’s quiet as she listens to Camila go on with her husband about the shipment loss, about what they’re going to do.

Kat thinks about what they’re going to do, too. About how they’re going to work this out.

But most of all about why the cops had known where and how to seize the coke at all.

Something wasn’t adding up, she couldn’t do the math in her head but she knew that there was a reason all of this was happening.

She’s so lost in her thoughts that when the phone call is over she doesn’t realize until Camila calls her from her own mind.

“Kat. Where’s Teresa?”

“I sent her to go get medicine from Cohen for one of the girls”

“She’s not back yet” Camila’s staring at the screen of her laptop intensely, her hands fisting around each other as her hawk eyes eyed the surveillance.

No…Teresa wouldn’t. Kat already knows that Camila’s thinking.

The girl was to intent on living to do something so stupid as working with the feds.  That was a fucking death wish and Teresa knew that

“You don’t think it’s suspicious that she was out when all of this happened?”

Kat doesn’t know…she really doesn’t.

But off of a gut feeling she tells Camila no. She didn’t  think Teresa was that much of an idiot.

She hoped she wasn’t wrong.

“You have Isabella on facebook, right?”

Kat nods “Yeah I do. But I’m pretty sure she keeps a lot of her posts private from me”

Kat would do the same. She and Isabella got along really well- Kat iked the kid. A lot And Isabella seemed to have this weird older sister god complex with her. But they both knew that Kat worked for her parents.

Kat opts to sit out of today’s interrogation and goes home for a few hours instead. She’s called on by Camila to come to a dinner with one of Reynaldo’s distrubutioners, Jaime.

She knows why.

She’s insurance. Persuasive eye candy. 

Two shipments in one month? Yeah. That shit didn’t happen and even with Camila having the granddaughter of one of the heads as her ward, she knew she had to sort some things out if she wanted to get another advance on product.

Kat goes to the dinner high as a kite; though she’s put in eye drops and sprayed perfume in an effort to cover the fact.

She meets them on the roodftop of the restaurant with a nasty case of the munchies and a head full of a lot less anxiety then earlier.

She feels good, the night air is cooler and makes her feel like she can actually take a full breath. Her lungs in her chest expand.

She’s thrown a thin pastel gray duster over the nude body con and brushed through her unruly thick hair so that it falls shiny and bouncy. The place is fancy, but she doesn’t stand out.

She’s a stark contrast to Camila who as usual is in her dark maroons and James who never takes off his leather jacket.

James. Who she continues to give the slight cold shoulder to.

He seems to ignore her too….and she tells herself it doesn’t bother her.

“Buenos noches” Jaime greets them as they sit at the table, kissing both of their hands.

“Hi Jaime” Kat has only met him once or twice but he’d never been anything but nice. Sauvé almost. He was an attractive man and Kat had always thought so.

“I’m sorry to hear about Albert. He was a good man”

Kat just gives a stiff nod.

James sits at one of the unoccupied tables directly behind them, his presence reinforcing and strong.

It makes the hairs on the back of Kat’s neck stand up, she can feel his gaze on the back of her head.

“Have you eaten, Kat? Here, order something. This place has great ribeye” Jaime hands her a menu and she happily accepts.

Fuck yes she’s hungry.

Dinner goes something like this;

Jaime’s not into the idea of giving Camila anymore product. Why would he be? Right now, she was an unsteady investment.

“If you didn’t have bad luck, you wouldn’t have any luck at all”

Ouch.

Mentions of the DEA and Rats, of solutions and of causes.  Of lost respect. Of the five million dollar debt Camila was currently in.

Kat orders herself strawberry cheesecake and a margarita and mostly stays quiet.

Like previously stated; she knew she was just there for Camila to feel like she had the upper hand. Not to actually have an opinion or anything.

So she eats her cheesecake and stares out at the stunning view of the city, still intently listening to their conversation, but in her own little world.

She kind of wishes she could take her food and go sit at the other table with James. At least then she wouldn’t feel so out of place.  

“Your husband is Epifanio Vargas, all you have to do is tell him to give you my money and this will all be done. And you can have yourself another shipment. Call him”

,,,,”Unless he doesn’t know about our deals”

Something about the way Jaime says that makes red flags go up in Kat’s head…shit starts connecting.

The math she couldn’t do earlier when she was sober? Yeah, she could do that shit with a little weed and frozen margarita in her system.

Epifanio.

It always came back to him. Anything that had to do with Camila-directly had to do with him.

And he wanted Teresa. And Batman…Batman had seen that Camila had her…

“Three days or I’ll call Epifanio myself. And whatever fate is doing to you, it’s going to finish it’s job” Jaime finishes with Camila who’s look is  silently vicious as she gets up to leave.

“Are you finished eating, Kat? Ready to leave?”

Kat nods, she’d long finished picking at her food, ant that margarita had been drank gone five or so minutes after it had been brought.

“Yes, I am-“ Kat goes to stand but she’s interrupted by Jaime.

“No, wait. Katrina, I need to speak with you alone for a moment”

Kat and Camila have an unspoken conversation before the elder woman nods and tells her they’d be waiting for her downstairs. Kat lowers herself back down in the chair and looks at the olive skinned man in questioning.

“Is everything okay?”

“I could ask you the same thing” Jaime starts, taking a slow bite of his steak “You’re a smart girl, Kat. I know you can see how volatile this situation between the two of them is becoming”

Kat can’t deny that. So she doesn’t.

“Reynaldo’s worried you’ll get caught up in the cross hair. Why don’t you come back to Colombia with me when I go? Just for a little while”

Kat glares at this. It was the second time in the last week that she’d been “asked” to go to Colombia that day.

“Are you asking me or telling me to come with you?”

“Asking you, of course Katrina”

Bullshit.

“Well if you’re just asking, I’m going to have to decline your offer. Sorry”

Jaime looks a little stricken, like he has more that he wants to say but Kat stands.

“It was good to see you, Jaime. I hope we can get together again soon”

“Anytime, bonita. Just call and I’m yours”

James and Camila are waiting downstairs, just like they said they would be and when she gets down she tries not to look too irritated.

“What happened?” James inquires at the look on the younger girls face and Kat just purses her lips.

“They want me to go to Colombia”

Camila knows now that shit is really getting serious. That she really had to pull together if she didn’t want it all to fall apart.

“James is going to get the money. From the place. It will all be okay after this, okay? We just have to stay level headed”

Kat balks at her. Part of that fucking money was hers. Didn’t she have a say in any of this?

Funny thing is- she knew she didn’t. She hadn’t. Since the moment she’d entered this life.

“Fine. I’m going with him”

Kats in the passenger seat, James is in the drivers, and Teresa’s in the back.

It’s becoming a familiar pattern; the three of them.

Another car full of workers follows them.  Back up. Because shit had been going so sideways lately.

Teresa can tell that the girl is pissed. She’s all twisted, her legs and arms crossed tightly as she looks out of the window and doesn’t say a word.

James keeps shooting Kat looks. Keeps wondering what he can say that won’t tick her off even more. He knew that she wasn’t happy about this, that a portion of that money was hers and she was obviously reluctant to give it up.

He wanted to say something to her.

But they hadn’t spoken more than twenty words to each other in days. He didn’t know how to handle a quiet Kat.

“This is Camila’s bank? A cemetery?” Teresa breaks the tense silence as they pull up to the ancient looking grave yard.

“Dead bankers are the only bankers she trusts” James deadpans as the iron gates open for them and the night security guard waves them in. 

Kat walks side by side with James to the grave, he heels sinking in the soft earth.

“I should have changes shoes. Fuck” She hisses into the darkness and Teresa just gives her a look.

The large, ornate stone tombstone is lettered ‘Garcia’ and Teresa watches as James takes a wrench and plys the copper name plate open to reveal one and then two brown duffle’s.

“Cant somebody come by?”

“No” Kat’s tone is matter of factly “The guards are payed them off”

“Always save for a rainy day”

Kat scoffed and went forward to grab one of the duffle bags. It was heavier then she expected it to be but she couldn’t wuss out so she dealt with the weight.

“Can we go now?”

Everythings going to plan, they’re following the SUV with their guys in it back to the warehouse.

“What do we do with this money?” Teresa. Always asking questions. Always outside of the loop.

“We’re going to get it to Camila and get out of this mess” James answers.

“Hopefully” Kat adds outloud. Doubtfully- she adds in her head.

“Aw shit” Kat knows James, knows his voice and the alert edge in his words makes her tense up as he stares into the rearview at the car that was coming at them too fast.

Her nerves begin to fry as she realizes their being ambushed.

“James, watch out!” Kat exclaims as a slick black mustang pulls in front of them, cutting them off. Trapping them. They’re sandwiched in between the two foreign cars.

When men, all dressed in black; black masks, black hoods, get out of the cars Kat drops automatically. Sliding down in her seat as far as she can go.

“GET DOWN” James cries as drops too. He’s heavy on top of Kat as he shields her.

The sound of automatic gun fire fills the air, metallic and loud and Kat lifts her hands to cover her ears.

Is she scared?

Of course.

There’s never a time when you’re getting shot at that you’re not totally shitted. No matter how many times it’s happened before.

She can feel James pounding heart beat on her back, it’s the only comfort she has in that moment as the car windows shatter and glass pours in

It’s over fast- They’re guys had flipped around, came back for them and they open fire on the thieves.

“Stay down” He orders her, his mouth pressed into her hair before he’s out of the car.

“James!” She protests, She feels this dread. This overwhelming sense of urgency so she reaches for the hand gun on the floor and makes sure it’s loaded and the safety’s off and follows him.

“Kat!” Teresa calls for her, trying to keep her in but she’s out. After her man, Teresa thinks.

When you’re under that kind of stress- the bloody violent kind- your adrenalin goes crazy. Kat can barley hold the gun straight as she asses the situation.

Two men. The thieves, have the duffle bags and are retreating. Trying to get away with her money.

She shoots twice, both hands security around the gun as she lines it up and pulls the trigger.

Bang. Pop.

It’s a shoulder shot and a chest shot and the man falls flat on his back, one of the duffle rolling out of his grip. The car speeds away with the other.

James looks over at her, his brown eyes horrified as she lowers the weapon and stares blankly at it.

“I told you to stay in the car!” He yells at her as he runs past her and to the man on the floor.

The guy is choking on his own blood, gasping around it as it fills his lungs.

The gunfire that has now stopped still echoes in Kat’s ears.

Tonto comes galloping up, his eyes blazing and worried.

Kat just nods at him. I’m okay. 

“They got one of the bags. 2.5 million-gone. Who are they” James fumes to them and Kat puts a hand on her head, the one that’s not still holding the gun, and curses her fucking brains out.

“God fucking damn it, those cock sucking motherfuckers”

Teresa stares at her wide eyed as she gets out of the car, before she goes over closer to James. Closer to the body.

More bodies, she thinks. They’re piling now.

Kat looks around, making a 360 as she assess the damage. One of theirs is dead too- lying face down on the asphalt. His blood that seeps from his head looks almost like glass in the dim light of the street lamps.

“I recognize the tattoo” Teresa discovers as James investigates the body, the one that Kat had dropped “He’s one of Eric’s men”

Kat turns back to them sharply.

She see’s red.

He’s dead. He’s so fucking dead. If she had to call Colombia to do it- she would.

“Let’s get out of here. Now” Suddenly James is up, hyper aware again as he grabs the remaining duffle . They’re still out in the open.

“Let’s go, Let’s go!”

Images of war torn countries play in his head as he limps to Tonto’s truck.

It doesn’t go unnoticed by Kat.

“James-“

“Get in the truck Kat” James throws the duffle bag in and then turns to the girl who’s eyes are wide and terror stricken as she looks at him.

“Are you okay?”

He grabs her by the arm, his other hand on her lower back as she climbs in beside Teresa. He keeps imagining them coming back- imagining her wrought with bullet holes and he wants to get them out of there now.

“Hey, look at me, James” She pulls on his arm, on his sleeve. Tugs him in beside her.

“Are you okay?” She repeats as she searches his face, not sounding so small anymore and the pain in his shoulder throbs something violent.

They’re back at the warehouse and James is stripped down to his white undershirt, sitting on a metal stool as the Charger picks pellet shards out of his upper arm. Kat is leaning against the desk beside them, unable to tear her eyes away from it, Camila is in the middle of the room pacing, Teresa is against a wall, trying to process and Tonto’s next to her, his face stony.  

“I’m telling you, it was Eric” James insists. He’s all tensed up as he deals with the piercing pain of the Charger digging in his arm with tweezers.

He makes sure to let go of the breath he had been holding, intent not to pass out.

“You sure it was him?” Camila speaks. She’s trying to seem calm but everyone can tell she’s anything but

“I’m positive”  Teresa chimes in “I saw the tattoo at his party, on his body guard.

“This is an act of war” Kat insists as Camila goes to exit the room “We can’t just do nothing”

“You need to call Epifanio and tell him what happened-“ James agrees. Even through his pain he can be level headed, can reason and game plan.

What a good little soldier.

“You know I can’t do that” Camila is hard, and close to his face as she tells him this “If he finds out I was trying to buy coke from the Colombians, We’ll be at war with him too”

Kat for the a hundredth time that night cupped her forehead in her hand.

“We’re still 2.5 million short”  James is starting to lose that cool demeanor . He snaps at her“So, what do you want to do Camila!”

Camila just looks him up and down, unimpressed and walks right by him.

Kat grits her teeth so fucking hard it hurts as they lock eyes. 

The Charger goes in again, digging into his arm and Kat has a snap of her own.

“Jesus fuck, you’re tearing him apart!”

“I’m doing the best I can- they’re in there deep”

She reaches into her purse, pulls out a little thing of disinfectant(thankful that bath&body works kept them by the register and she could never not buy one) and rubbed it all over her hands before holding out her palm.

“Here” She demanded and the Charger handed her the tweezers without question and let her switch positions with him. She moved closer to James while he backed away, giving her space.

She looks at the mess of his tattooed arm and wondered if that would have been her head had not shielded her.

Her stomach flip flops on itself and she forces her hands to be steady as she goes to work.

She’s gentler then the Charger which James appreciates, but none less efficient. He hears the shards cling as she pulls them out and puts them in the metal bowl.

“Thank you” Kat whispers lowly, for only him to hear.

He’s surprised when she says that, his eyebrows knit together  he stiffens up a little.

“For what?”

“You know what-” Kat persists as she pulls a gnarly piece out and she hears his breath catch “Fuck. I’m sorry, I know this hurts” She rubs the side of his arm that wasn’t wounded tenderly “-For taking care of me back there. That whole human shield thing? Very Captain America of you”

He snorts. Leave it to her to make a joke when she was picking bullets out of him.

“Yeah, no problem” He’s kind of in a daze. Maybe from the blood loss. But her speaking to him, being so gentle with him felt extremely intimate. He can’t pull his gaze away from the way her hair falls over her focused eyes as she mends him.

He thinks back to that dream.

He tries to think of anything other than that dream.

“Thank you” He returns it and she smiles not looking away from her work.

“Your welcome” Her voice is soft as her hands and he leans into it.

So much for not thinking of that dream.

**_So since I’ve deprived you guys for so long I not only gave you crazy chapters updates in one day, I gave you smut. Expect lots more. Love you all, enjoy_ ** **_J_ **


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